Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao

Prof. Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao (10 September 1920 – 22 August 2023) was an Indian-American mathematician and statistician. He was professor emeritus at Pennsylvania State University and research professor at the University at Buffalo. Rao was honoured by numerous colloquia, honorary degrees, and festschrifts and was awarded the US National Medal of Science in 2002. The American Statistical Association has described him as "a living legend" whose work has influenced not just statistics, but has had far reaching implications for fields as varied as economics, genetics, anthropology, geology, national planning, demography, biometry, and medicine."

In 2023, Rao was awarded the International Prize in Statistics, an award often touted as the "statistics' equivalent of the Nobel Prize". Rao was also a Senior Policy and Statistics advisor for the Indian Heart Association non-profit focused on raising South Asian cardiovascular disease awareness.

Early life C. R. Rao was the eighth of the ten children born to a Telugu family

Career

Rao first worked at the Indian Statistical Institute and the Anthropological Museum in Cambridge. Later he held several important positions, as the Director of the Indian Statistical Institute, Jawaharlal Nehru Professor and National Professor in India, University Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and Eberly Professor and Chair of Statistics and Director of the Center for Multivariate Analysis at Pennsylvania State University.

As Head and later Director of the Research and Training School at the Indian Statistical Institute, India for a period of over 40 years, Rao developed research and training programs and produced several leaders in the field of Mathematics. On the basis of Rao's recommendation, the Asian Statistical Institute (ASI), now known as the Statistical Institute for Asia and Pacific, was established in Tokyo to provide training to statisticians working in government and industrial organisations.

Among his best-known discoveries are the Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA), Rao Distance, Rao's Score test, Rao's Quadratic Entropy, Cramér–Rao bound and the Rao–Blackwell theorem these are related to the quality of estimators. Majority of the publications were during his time period in Indian Statistical Institute in 60 years of his career. Other areas he worked in include multivariate analysis, estimation theory, and differential geometry. His other contributions include the Fisher–Rao theorem, Rao distance, and orthogonal arrays. He was the author of 15 books

Awards and medals

Guy Medal in Gold (2011) of the Royal Statistical Society India Science Award 2010 (the highest award in a scientific field presented by government of India) International Mahalanobis Prize (2003) of the International Statistical Institute Srinivasa Ramanujan Medal (2003) of the Indian National Science Academy Sardar Patel Lifetime Achievement International Award (Sardar Ratna) (2014) by Sardar Patel International Foundation, India President George W. Bush, on 12 June 2002, honoured him with the National Medal of Science, the highest award in US in the scientific field, as a "prophet of new age" with the citation, "for his pioneering contributions to the foundations of statistical theory and multivariate statistical methodology and their applications, enriching the physical, biological, mathematical, economic and engineering sciences." Padma Vibhushan (2001) by the Government of India Mahalanobis Centenary Gold Medal (1993?) of the Indian Science Congress Wilks Memorial Award (1989) of the American Statistical Association Padma Bhushan (1968) Also honorary doctorates from a number of universities and institutes around the world. 2023 International Prize in Statistics

In his honour

The Pennsylvania State University has established C. R. and Bhargavi Rao Prize in Statistics CR Rao Advanced Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science National Award in Statistics established by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), Government of India. The road from IIIT Hyderabad passing along Central University of Hyderabad crossroads to Alind Factory, Lingampally is named as "Prof. C.R. Rao Road".

Selected publications

Books

2020. PEREIRA, B. de B.; RAO, Calyampudi Radhakrishna.; OLIVEIRA, F. B.;Statistical Learning Using Neural Networks: A Guide for Statisticians and Data Scientists with Python, CRC Press, London. 2017. Book Review: Multivariate Statistical Methods, A Primer 2016. (with Lovric, M.) Testing Point Null Hypothesis of a Normal Mean and the Truth: 21st Century Perspective 2009. (with PEREIRA, B. de B.) Data Mining Using Neural Networks: A Guide for Statisticians. State College, Pennsylvania, 2009. 186 p. 1999. (with Helge Toutenburg, Andreas Fieger et al.). Linear Models: Least Squares and Alternatives, 2ed, Springer Series in Statistics. Springer 1998. (with M. Bhaskara Rao). Matrix Algebra & Its Applications to Statistics & Econometrics. World Scientific 1997. Statistics And Truth: Putting Chance To Work, 2ed. Wspc 1996. Principal Component and Factor Analyses. PN 1996. Extensions of a Characterization of an Exponential Distribution Based on a Censored Ordered Sample. 1996. Bootstrap by Sequential Resampling. PN 1993. Applications of Multivariate Analysis. PN 1992. Signal Estimation, Multitarget Tracking and Related Areas. 1989. Multivariate Analysis and Its Applications. PN 1988. Linear Transformations, Projection Operators and Generalized Inverses; A Geometric Approach. PN 1984. Recent Results on Characterization of Probability Distributions: A unified Approach through Extensions of Deny's Theorem. PN 1973. Linear Statistical Inference and Its Applications, 2nd Edition. Wiley-Interscience 1973. On a Unified Theory of Estimation in Linear Models. PN 1973. (with A.M. Kagan et al.). Characterization Problems in Mathematical Statistics, Wiley Series in Probability & Mathematical Statistics. 1972. (with Sujit Kumar Mitra). Generalized Inverse of Matrices and Its Applications, Probability & Mathematical Statistics. John Wiley & Sons 1963. Essays on econometrics and planning. Statistical Pub. Society

Edited volumes

2015. (Ed. with Marepalli B. Rao). Handbook of Statistics 32: Computational Statistics with. Elsevier 2013. (Ed. with Venu Govindaraju). Handbook of Statistics 31: Machine Learning: Theory and Applications. North Holland 2012. (Ed. with Tata Subba Rao and Suhasini Subba Rao). Handbook of Statistics 30: Time Series Analysis: Methods and Applications . North Holland 2012. (Ed. with Ranajit Chakraborty and Pranab K. Sen). Handbook of Statistics 28: Bioinformatics in Human Health and Heredity. North Holland 2011. (Ed. with Dipak K. Dey). Essential Bayesian Models. North Holland 2011. (Ed. with Danny Pfeffermann). Essential Methods for Design Based Sample Surveys. North Holland 2009. (Ed. with Danny Pfeffermann). Handbook of Statistics 29A: Sample Surveys: Design, Methods and Applications. North Holland 2009. (Ed. with Danny Pfeffermann). Handbook of statistics 29B Sample Surveys: Inference and Analysis. North Holland 2007. (Ed. with J. Philip Miller and D.C. Rao). Handbook of Statistics 27: Epidemiology and Medical Statistics. North Holland 2006. (Ed. with Sandip Sinharay). Handbook of Statistics, Volume 26: Psychometrics. North Holland 2005. (Ed. with Dipak K. Dey). Handbook of Statistics 25: Bayesian Thinking, Modeling and Computation. North Holland 2005. (Ed.). Handbook of Statistics 24: Data Mining and Data Visualization. North Holland 2004. (Ed. with N. Balakrishnan). Handbook of Statistics 23: Advances in Survival Analysis. North Holland 2003. (Ed. with Ravindra Khattree). Handbook of Statistics 22: Statistics in Industry. North Holland 2001. (Ed. with N. Balakrishnan). Handbook of Statistics 20: Advances in Reliability, North-Holland Mathematics Studies. Elsevier 2001. (Ed. with D. N. Shanbhag). Handbook of Statistics 19: Stochastic Processes: Theory and Methods. North-Holland 2000. (Ed. with Pranab Kumar Sen). Handbook of Statistics 18: Bioenvironmental and Public Health Statistics. North-Holland 1998. (Ed. with N. Balakrishnan). Handbook of Statistics 17: Order Statistics: Applications. North-Holland 1998. (Ed. with N. Balakrishnan). Handbook of Statistics 16: Order Statistics: Theory & Methods. North-Holland 1997. (Ed. with G.S. Maddala). Handbook of Statistics 15: Robust Inference. Elsevier 1996. (Ed. with G.S. Maddala). Handbook of Statistics 14: Statistical Methods in Finance. Elsevier 1996. (Ed. with S. Ghosh). Handbook of Statistics 13: Design and Analysis of Experiments. North Holland 1994. (Ed. with G.P. Patil). Handbook of Statistics 12: Environmental Statistics. Elsevier 1994. (Ed. with G.P. Patil). Multivariate Environmental Statistics., Volume 6 in North-Holland Series in Statistics and Probability. North Holland 1993. (Ed. with G. S. Maddala and H. D. Vinod). Handbook of Statistics 11: Econometrics, Techniques and Instrumentation in Analytical Chemistry. Elsevier 1993. (Ed. with N. K. Bose). Handbook of Statistics 10: Signal Processing and its Applications, Elsevier 1993. (Ed.). Handbook of Statistics 9: Computational Statistics. North-Holland 1991. (Ed. with R. Chakraborty). Handbook of Statistics 8: Statistical Methods in Biological and Medical Sciences. North-Holland. 1988. (Ed. with Krishnaiah P.R.). Handbook of Statistics 7: Quality Control and Reliability. 1988. (Ed. with P. R. Krishnaiah). Handbook of Statistics 6: Sampling. North-Holland. 1969. (Ed. with R. C. Bose, I. M. Chakravarti et al.). Essays in Probability and Statistics, Monograph Series in Probability and Statistics. The University of North Carolina Press

Textbooks

1970. Advanced Statistical Methods in Biometric Research. Macmillan

Collected works 1996. Selected Papers of C.R. Rao 3. (Ed). S. Das Gupta et al. Wiley-Interscience 1995. Advances in Econometrics and Quantitative Economics, Essays in Honor of Professor C.R. Rao. (Eds.) G. S. Maddala, T. N. Srinivasan, and Peter C. B. Phillips. Wiley-Blackwell 1994. Selected Papers of C.R. Rao 2. (Ed). S. Das Gupta et al. Wiley-Interscience 1994. Selected Papers of C.R. Rao 1. (Ed). S. Das Gupta et al. Wiley-Interscience 1982. Statistics and Probability: Essays in Honor of C. R. Rao. (Ed.). Kallinapur. Elsevier