Spring 2002 -- Vol. 19, No. 1

FACES OF PENN STATE

C. R. Rao
Eberly Family Chair in Statistics, Emeritus

During a career that has spanned seven decades, statistician C.R. Rao has authored several books, received 24 honorary degrees, mentored 50 Ph.D. students and written hundreds of papers, helping shape statistics.

Ironically, even statistics fail to completely convey the impact of C.R. Rao. Acknowledged as one of the most accomplished statisticians in the world, and clearly a scientist who shaped the discipline of statistics from its infancy, numbers alone do not measure his impact.

Still, the numbers are impressive.

He graduated number one in his class twice—when earning a master’s degree in 1940 at Andhra University and three years later while earning another master’s degree from Calcutta University.

During a career that has spanned seven decades, Rao has authored several books, received 24 honorary degrees, mentored 50 Ph.D. students and written hundreds of papers—several of which helped shape the development of statistics as its own field of study.

Twice he has been honored with civilian awards from the government of India, awards that rank among the highest the country bestows. In addition, he has been selected as an Honorary Fellow of King’s College at Cambridge University—a lifelong honor that goes to just 11 people in the world at any given time. He is a member of two prestigious science academies: the Royal Society in Great Britain and the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.

All the accomplishments and honors (a complete list would cover a couple of pages) provide only a portion of the description necessary to summarize Rao, though. They reflect his accomplishments and represent the respect he has earned all over the world.

How he got to that point—with a career, and character, forged on hard work, perseverence, and talent—helps round out a complete and proper picture of the legendary statistician, who has retired three times but works almost every day.

In fact, he remains an early riser, thanks to his mother’s influence. When he was a child, she woke him at 4 a.m. so he could study “when the mind is fresh.” Later, as his career began to flourish, it was not uncommon for him to stay awake all night in search of an answer to a problem, which he usually found.

"It has always been a challenge to work through problems," Rao says. "It's as important to me now as ever."

Many statistical results and theories, such as the Cramér-Rao Bound, the Cramér-Rao Inequality, Rao’s Score Test, Rao Distance and Rao’s Orthogonal Arrays bear his name because he made the respective breakthroughs and discoveries. As an example, his work with bounds provided the basis for margin-of-error statistics commonly associated with election results or polling data.

As a researcher and teacher, he has witnessed how the development of computers has impacted the field of statistics, allowing more collaboration and work with larger statistical samples. At the same time, he also has encouraged his doctoral students to shine. Rather than publishing papers with them as a co-author, he expects them to stand alone with their results.

-- Steve Sampsell

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