Tributes to Prof. C R Rao

Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao, FRS (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. Among his best-known discoveries are the Cramér–Rao bound and the Rao–Blackwell theorem both related to the quality of estimators. 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 14 books and published over 400 journal publications. Prof. Rao received 38 honorary doctoral degrees from universities in 19 countries around the world and numerous awards and medals for his contributions to statistics and science. In 2023, Rao was awarded the International Prize in Statistics, an award often touted as the “statistics’ equivalent of the Nobel Prize”.