Wallis was a psychology graduate of U Minnesota in 1932. He then studied economics at Minnesota and at U Chicago. Subsequently he held posts in the economics departments at Columbia U, Yale U, and Stanford U. During the Second World War he headed a statistics think-tank. From 1946 to 1962 he was Professor of Statistics at the Business School of U Chicago. His paper with Kruskal on the Kruskal–Wallis test appeared in 1952. From 1951 to 1959 he was Editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association. In 1962 he moved to U Rochester as President and then Chancellor (1975–82). On retirement from university life he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (until 1989). He was presented with the Wilks Award of the ASA in 1980.

http://projecteuclid.org/DPubS?service=UI&version=1.0&verb=Display&handle=euclid.ss/1177011818 Fuller biography, interview, and photographs.