After his BA in Mathematics from Andhra University, Rao joined the Indian Statistical Institute. He worked there for the next 40 years, turning it into India’s and one of the world’s best institute for Statistics. This, at a time, when data was not easy to come by.

He retired as it’s director in 1978, when he reached his retirement age of 58 years. But retirement didn’t the end of work life. He went to live with his daughter in America and there at the age of 62, he became a professor of statistics at the University of Pittsburgh.

At 70 he become the head of the department at the Pennsylvania State University from where he eventually retired, (for the second time in his life), as Eberly Professor Emeritus in the Statistics Department at the age of 81 yeas.The same year, in 2001, he was honoured with a Padma Vibhushan by India.

At the age of 82, he received the National Medal for Science, the highest award in US in the scientific field. 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. The Fisher–Rao theorem, Rao distance, and orthogonal arrays are some of this other famous works. He was the author of 14 books and published over 400 journal publications.

In the year 2023, at the age of 102 years, he was awarded the International Prize in Statistics, popularly considered the equivalent to the Nobel Prize in the field.

His death is a reminder about how to live, especially in the later years of one’s life. Age is just a number. After people retire, they often retreat from public life. However, we forget that retirement is a modern concept. Before the industrial revolution, a hunter would hunt till he could, a farmer would farm till she could and a potter would make pottery till he could. As they say, if a Lion retires, what will it eat?CR Rao was not just a lion in his field of Statistics, he also showed us how to live, especially in the senior years of our lives.

After his BA in Mathematics from Andhra University, Rao joined the Indian Statistical Institute. He worked there for the next 40 years, turning it into India’s and one of the world’s best institute for Statistics. This, at a time, when data was not easy to come by.

He retired as it’s director in 1978, when he reached his retirement age of 58 years. But retirement didn’t the end of work life. He went to live with his daughter in America and there at the age of 62, he became a professor of statistics at the University of Pittsburgh.

At 70 he become the head of the department at the Pennsylvania State University from where he eventually retired, (for the second time in his life), as Eberly Professor Emeritus in the Statistics Department at the age of 81 yeas.The same year, in 2001, he was honoured with a Padma Vibhushan by India.

At the age of 82, he received the National Medal for Science, the highest award in US in the scientific field. 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. The Fisher–Rao theorem, Rao distance, and orthogonal arrays are some of this other famous works. He was the author of 14 books and published over 400 journal publications.

In the year 2023, at the age of 102 years, he was awarded the International Prize in Statistics, popularly considered the equivalent to the Nobel Prize in the field.

His death is a reminder about how to live, especially in the later years of one’s life. Age is just a number. After people retire, they often retreat from public life. However, we forget that retirement is a modern concept. Before the industrial revolution, a hunter would hunt till he could, a farmer would farm till she could and a potter would make pottery till he could. As they say, if a Lion retires, what will it eat?CR Rao was not just a lion in his field of Statistics, he also showed us how to live, especially in the senior years of our lives.