Professor C. Radhakrishna Rao

Professor C. Radhakrishna Rao, former Eberly Professor of Statistics and Directorof the Center for Multivariate Analysis at Pennsylvania State University and AdjunctProfessor at the University of Pittsburg, is one the most distinguished statistician andworldwide leader of statistics in the world.

Professor Rao has been president of ‘Forum for Interdisciplinary Mathematics’,1982-1987 and continues to be a member of the Editorial Board of Forum’s researchjournal ‘ Journal of Combinatorics, Information & System Sciences.’ He has taken activeinterest in the activities of the Forum, participating in International Conferences of theForum held in 1997 (USA, keynote speaker and honored), 2001(Australia), and iscurrently Chair of the ‘International Advisory Committee’ of the forthcoming‘International Conference on Statistics, Combinatorics & Related Areas’, scheduled forOctober 3-5, 2003 at the University of Southern Maine, Maine, USA.

Radhakrishna Rao was born on September 10, 1920 in village ‘Huvanna-Hadgili’ inthe state of Karnataka, India, to his parents Shri C. D. Naidu and Lakshkantamma. He didHigh School from Vishakhapatnam, B.A. (Hons.) and M.A. (Mathematics, 1940) fromAndhra University, M. Sc. (Statistics) from Calcutta University (1943), and later Ph. D.(1948) and Sc. D. from Cambridge University, UK, under Professor R. A. Fisher. Hehas received 29 honorary doctoral degrees from universities in sixteen countries -including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Greece, Finland, India, Germany, Greece, Poland,Spain, Slovakia, and Switzerland - around the world. Professor Rao is author of 14 booksand about 350 research papers published in professional journals, and has mentoredresearch work of about 50 students for the Ph.D. degree, most of which are employed inuniversities and research organizations around the world.

Professor C. R Rao served ‘Indian Statistical Institute’ (1944-1992) in differentpositions before retiring as its Director. After retiring from ISI in India, Calyampudi R.Rao moved to Pennsylvania State University, and has served at several other universitiesof the world as a Visiting Professor.

Areas of research contributions of Professor Rao include Estimation Theory,Inference & Linear Models, Multivariate Analysis, Combinatorial Designs, Biometry,Mathematical Genetics, Generalized Inverses of Matrices, and Functional Equations.

He has received numerous awards and medals. Government of India awarded himPadma Vibhushan. President Bush, on June 12,2002, decorated him with ‘NationalMedal of Science’. Other medals include Wilks Medal of the American Statistical

Association, Guy Medal in Silver of the Royal Statistical Society, Megnadh Saha Medalof the Indian National Science Academy, JC Bose Gold Medal of Bose Institute, andMahalanobis Centenary Gold Medal of the Indian Science Congress.

In his honor, Penn State University has established C. R. and Bhargavi Rao Prize instatistics, and Osmania University has founded C.R. Rao Advanced Institute forMathematical and Computer Sciences (AIMCS).

Professor Rao was married to Smt. Bhargavi Rao on September 9, 1948 and hastwo children – daughter, Dr Tejaswini Rao, and son, Veerendra Rao – and two grandchildren Amar and Rohith, all in USA.

Contact - e-mail- crr1@psu.edu, http://www.stat.psu.edu/people/faculty/rao.html