Penn State Intercom......February
8 , 2001
Rao receives India's
second-highest honor
for civilians
Calyampudi R. Rao,
holder of the Eberly Family Chair in
statistics and director of the Center for Multivariate Analysis, has been
given an award titled Padma Vibhushan, which is the second-highest civilian
honor bestowed by the country of India for outstanding contributions to
science, engineering and statistics.
Indian officials announced the country's civilian awards Jan. 25, on the eve of the country's Republic Day festivities.
Rao is internationally acknowledged as one of the pioneers who laid the foundation of modern statistics, as well as one of the world's top five statisticians with multifaceted distinctions as a mathematician, researcher, scientist and teacher. His pioneering contributions to mathematics and statistical theory and applications have become part of graduate and postgraduate courses in statistics, econometrics, electrical engineering and many other disciplines at most universities throughout the world.
He has received numerous awards and medals for his pioneering contributions to statistics. In addition, he has been honored by the Indian government as the namesake for a national award to be presented to the country's outstanding young statisticians. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.A.), a Fellow of the Royal Society (England) and recipient of 23 honorary doctoral degrees from universities in 14 countries around the world.
Rao has been a member of the Penn State faculty since 1988. He earned a doctoral degree from Cambridge University, on the basis of published work in statistics, in 1965. He earned his initial doctoral degree in statistics from Cambridge University in 1948. He earned a master's degree in statistics from Calcutta University in India in 1943 and a master's in mathematics from Andhra University in India in 1940. In both instances he graduated first in his class.