Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao, FRS known as C R Rao (born 10 September 1920) is an Indian-born, naturalized American, mathematician and statistician. He is currently professor emeritus at Penn State University and Research Professor at the University at Buffalo. Rao has been honoured by numerous colloquia, honorary degrees, and festschrifts and was awarded the US National Medal of Science in 2002.The American Statistical Association has described him as “a living legend whose work has influenced not just statistics, but has had far reaching implications for fields as varied as economics, genetics, anthropology, geology, national planning, demography, biometry, and medicine.”The Times of India listed Rao as one of the top 10 Indian scientists of all time.Rao is also a Senior Policy and Statistics advisor for the Indian Heart Association non-profit focused on raising South Asian cardiovascular disease awareness.
C R Rao was born into a Kannada speaking Telugu family in Hadagali, Bellary, Karnataka, India. He received an M.Sc. in mathematics from Andhra University and an M.A. in statistics from Calcutta University in 1943.He was among the first few people in the world to hold a master’s degree in Statistics.
Areas of research contributions
Estimation theory
Statistical inference and linear models
Multivariate analysis
Combinatorial design
Orthogonal arrays
Biometry
Statistical genetics
Generalized matrix inverses
Functional equations
(Ref:www.isical.ac.in & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._R._Rao)