A Conversation with C. R. Rao

Abstract

Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao was born on September 10, 1920, in Hadagali, Karnataka State, India. He received an M.A. in mathematics from Andhra University in 1940; an M.A. in statistics from Calcutta University in 1943; a Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1948, with a thesis entitled problemWs of biological classification; and an Sc.D. from Cambridge in 1965 on the basis of his published work in statistics as a whole. He joined the Indian Statistical Institute as a statistician in 1944 and became a professor in 1949, the director of the Research and Training School in 1964, the secretary and director of the Institute in 1972, and the Jawaharlal Nehru Professor in 1976. In 1979 he was appointed a University Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Pittsburgh. He has been the President of the International Statistical Institute, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the International Biometric Society, and the Indian Econometric Society; and since 1964, an editor of Sankhyd. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) of the United Kingdom; a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Science; an Honorary Member of the International Statistical Institute; an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society; an Honorary Life Member of the Biometric Society; a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and Indian Academy of Sciences; an Honorary Fellow of King's College, Cambridge; and a Founder Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences, Trieste. He has received honorary degrees from Andhra University, India, 1967; Leningrad University, U.S.S.R., 1970; Delhi University, India, 1973; Athens University, Greece, 1976; Osmania University, India, 1977; Ohio State University, U.S.A., 1979; Universidad Nacional de San Marcos, Peru, 1982; University of the Philippines, 1983; and University of Tampere, Finland, 1985. The following conversation took place in his office at the University of Pittsburgh one morning in November 1985.