C.R. Rao was a statistician whose discoveries transformed modern statistical science. His pioneering work produced foundational concepts, including the Cramér-Rao bound and the Rao-Blackwell theorem, that underpin statistical inference across disciplines. During his career at Pennsylvania State University and the University at Buffalo, Rao influenced generations of researchers while advancing the use of statistics in medicine, economics, engineering, and the natural sciences. In 2023, he was awarded the International Prize in Statistics, one of the field’s highest honors.
