Richard Eugene Barlow (born January 12, 1931) is an American mathematician and mathematical statistician, who is considered with Frank Proschan as the founder of modern reliability theory.
He introduced the concept of "Total Time on Test" processes in reliability theory.
His dissertation was titled Applications of Semi-Markov Processes to Counter and Reliability Problems.
He was a guest scientist at the Boeing Laboratories in 1966 and at Florida State University in 1975 and 1976 (with Frank Proschan).
In 1991 he was awarded the John von Neumann Theory Prize with Frank Proschan.