Professor C Radhakrishna Rao was born into a Telugu family in Bellary District of Karnataka in 1920. He did his MSc in Mathematics from Andhra University and MA in Statistics from Calcutta University in 1943. His father was a Police Inspector and CR Rao was his 8th child out of 10.
He did his PhD from Kings College, Cambridge in 1948 and then a DSc from Cambridge in 1965. He completed his DSc at the age of 45.
CR Rao married Bhargavi Rao in 1948 who was a Professor of Psychology and studied at BHU and University of Illinois.
He first worked at the Indian Statistical Institute at Calcutta and then at the Anthropological Museum at Cambridge. He was the Director of the Indian Statistical Institute, Professor at JNU and National Professor in India. He was later University Professor at the University of Pittsburg and then Eberly Professor at Pennsylvania State University.
At the Indian Statistical Institute, he worked till his retirement and produced many leaders in Mathematics. He founded the CR Rao Advanced Institute of Mathematics, Statistics & Computer Science at Hyderabad in the Hyderabad University campus.
The best known of his discoveries are Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA), Rao Distance, Rao’s Score Test, Rao’s Quadratic Entropy, Cramer-Rao bound and the Rao Blackwell Theorem. He was the author of 15 books and over 400 journal publications. Majority of his publications were made at the time of his long stint at the Indian Statistical Institute.
He received 38 honorary doctorates from universities in 19 countries and numerous awards & medals. He was awarded a Padma Bhushan way back in 1968, and the Padma Vibhushan in 2001. He was the President of the International Statistical Institute, Institute of Mathematical Statistics (USA) and the International Biometric Society. The Journal of Quantitative Economics published a special issue in Rao’s honor in 1991.
CR Rao moved to the USA in 1980 after completing his long tenure at the Indian Statistical Institute aged 60`. He first joined the University of Pittsburg as a Professor and then joined Pennsylvania State University as a Professor in 1988. He then moved to the University at Buffalo as a Research Professor in 2010 at the age of 90. He died aged 102 in August 2023. His career spanned 8 decades which in itself is a record.
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