Department of Statistics Seminar
North Carolina State University

presents

Professor C. R. Rao*

Penn State University

"Statistics: The science, technology and art of creating new knowledge"

ABSTRACT

What is knowledge and what are the instruments and thought processes involved in creating new knowledge? What kind of knowledge can be created by experimentation and extraction of information from observed data? How is the knowledge so generated useful in practical decision making? Some problems where statistical methodology is used to generate knowledge to solve them will be presented.

Some of the examples are as follows: Who wrote the poem discovered in a library without any record of its authorship, Shakespeare or a contemporary poet? Is the second born child more intelligent than the first born? Who wrote the ancient Indian text Arthasastra? Is the expression of a gene in a normal person and a cancer patient the same? Are the goods produced by a machine according to specification?

R.A.Fisher in his presidential address to the Royal Statistical Society said: "Statistical science is the peculiar aspect of human progress which gave to the 20th century its peculiar character. It is to the statistician that the present age turns for what is most essential in all its more important activities". As we enter into the 21st century, we are faced with new problems and new prospects for the use of statistics in solving them. The scope of statistics as it is understood, studied and practiced today extends to the whole gamut of natural and social sciences,engineering and technology, management and economic affairs, and arts and literature.

Friday, September, 26, 2003

3:35 - 4:35 pm

206 Cox Hall

Refreshments will be served on the second floor of Dabney Hall (left of Room 222) at 3:00 pm.

*SHORT BIO OF C. R. RAO

C.R. Rao is among the world leaders in statistical science over the last six decades. His research, scholarship and professional services have had a profound influence in theory and applications of statistics. Technical terms such as, Cramer-Rao inequality, Rao-Blackwellization, Rao's Score Test, Fisher-Rao Theorem, Rao distance and orthogonal arrays (described as "new manthra" for industries) appear in all standard books on statistics. Two of his papers appear in Breakthroughs in Statistics in the last century.. Rao earned his Ph.D. and Sc.D. degrees at Cambridge University, UK, with R.A. Fisher as supervisor, and has received 28 Honorary Doctoral degrees from universities in sixteen countries around the world. 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 of statistics at the Pennsylvania State University. For his pioneering contributions to statistical theory and applications, Rao received numerous awards. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, USA, American Academy of Arts and Science, Royal Society (UK Academy of Sciences), Indian National Science Academy, Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and Third World Academy of Sciences. He was made an Honorary Member of the International Statistical Institute, International Biometric Society, Royal Statistical Society (UK), Finnish Statistical Society, Portuguese Statistical Society, Institute of Combinatorics and Applications and World Innovation Foundation, and Honorary Life Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. He has been the President of the International Statistical Institute, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, USA and the International Biometric Society.

He received numerous medals: Wilks Medal of the American Statistical Association, Guy Medal in Silver of the Royal Statistical Society, Megnadh Saha Medal and Srinivasa Ramanujan Medal of the Indian National Science Academy, J.C. Bose Gold Medal of Bose Institute and Mahalanobis Centenary Gold Medal of the Indian Science Congress. He received Bhatnagar award of CSIR in India and Mahalanobis Prize instituted by the International Statistical Institute.

Rao was honored by the President of the USA with the prestigious National Medal of Science 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".

The Government of India honored him with the second highest civilian award, Padma Vibhushan for "outstanding contributions to Science and Engineering/Statistics", and also instituted a cash award in honor of C.R. Rao, "to be given once in two years to a young statistician for work done during the preceding 3 years in any field of statistics.
Rao' academic career spans a period of sixty years during which he has written about a dozen books, some of which are translated into several languages, and 400 research papers, and produced 50 Ph.D.students who in turn produced about 200 Ph.D's.