Dipak Kumar Dey (born August 12, 1953 in

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

) is an Indian-American statistician best known for his work on

Bayesian Thomas Bayes (/beɪz/; c. 1701 – 1761) was an English statistician, philosopher, and Presbyterian minister. Bayesian () refers either to a range of concepts and approaches that relate to statistical methods based on Bayes' theorem, or a follower ...

methodologies. He is currently the Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor in the Department of Statistics at the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

. Dey has an international reputation as a statistician as well as a data scientist. Since he earned a Ph.D. degree in statistics from

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

in 1980, Dey has made tremendous contributions to the development of modern statistics, especially in

Bayesian analysis Bayesian inference is a method of statistical inference in which Bayes' theorem is used to update the probability for a hypothesis as more evidence or information becomes available. Bayesian inference is an important technique in statistics, and ...

decision science Decision theory (or the theory of choice; not to be confused with choice theory) is a branch of applied probability theory concerned with the theory of making decisions based on assigning probabilities to various factors and assigning numerical ...

and

model selection Model selection is the task of selecting a statistical model from a set of candidate models, given data. In the simplest cases, a pre-existing set of data is considered. However, the task can also involve the design of experiments such that the ...

. Dey has published more than 10 books and edited volumes, and over 260 research articles in peer-refereed national and international journals. In addition, the statistical methodologies that he has developed has found wide applications in a plethora of interdisciplinary and applied fields, such as biometry and bioinformatics, genetics, econometrics, environmental science, and social science. Dey has supervised 40 Ph.D. students, and presented more than 200 professional talks in colloquia, seminars and conferences all over the world. During his career, Dey has been a visiting professor or scholar at many institutions or research centers around the world, such as

Macquarie University Macquarie University ( ) is a public research university based in Sydney, Australia, in the suburb of Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of S ...

(

Sydney, Australia Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and List of cities in Oceania by population, Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metro ...

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (''PUC or UC Chile'') ( es, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) is one of the six Catholic Universities existing in the Chilean university system and one of the two pontifical universities i ...

, (

Santiago, Chile Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital (political), capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated Regions of Chile, region, t ...

University of São Paulo The University of São Paulo ( pt, Universidade de São Paulo, USP) is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian public university and the country's most prestigious educational institution, the best ...

(

São Paulo, Brazil SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U.S ...

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

(

Vancouver, Canada Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. The ...

), Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (

Research Triangle Park, NC Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States, occupying in North Carolina and hosting more than 300 companies and 65,000 workers. The facility is named for its location relative to the three surrounding cities ...

), etc. Dey is an elected fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

, the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...

, the

Institute of Mathematical Statistics The Institute of Mathematical Statistics is an international professional and scholarly society devoted to the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability. The Institute currently has about 4,000 members in all parts o ...

, the

International Society for Bayesian Analysis The International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA) is a society with the goal of promoting Bayesian analysis for solving problems in the sciences and government. It was formally incorporated as a not for profit corporation by economist Arnold ...

and the

International Statistical Institute The International Statistical Institute (ISI) is a professional association of statisticians. It was founded in 1885, although there had been international statistical congresses since 1853. The institute has about 4,000 elected members from gov ...

Early life and education

Dey was born in

, India in 1953, the son of Debendranath and Ranuka Dey. He attended Ballygunge Government High School (

) and won the National Merit Scholarship. In 1970, Dey joined the

Indian Statistical Institute Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) is a higher education and research institute which is recognized as an Institute of National Importance by the 1959 act of the Indian parliament. It grew out of the Statistical Laboratory set up by Prasanta C ...

, where he ultimately earned a bachelor's degree (with honors in 1974), and a master's degree (in 1975), both in Statistics. Afterwards, Dey moved to the United States and attended

(

West Lafayette, IN West Lafayette () is a city in Wabash Township, Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, about northwest of the state capital of Indianapolis and southeast of Chicago. West Lafayette is directly across the Wabash River from its sister city, ...

) for higher education. He obtained an M.S. degree (in statistics) and a Ph.D. degree (also in statistics), respectively in 1977 and 1980. At

, Dey's advisor was Jim Berger. Dey's dissertation focused on Bayes approach where prior distributions were constructed from the structure of sampling distributions and/or of statistical testing hypotheses, with criticisms of the use of p-values and critical levels. Dey's research also involves simultaneous estimation problems, Stein-type estimation and robust generalized Bayes approach where prior distributions were constructed under various structures.

Career

After completing visiting positions at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...

, Dey joined Texas Tech University in 1982 as an assistant professor of mathematics. Later in 1985, Dey moved to the

as an associate professor of statistics. He served as the chair of the department from 1997 to 2011. In the next five years, Dey was appointed the associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Science at the University of Connecticut.

Contributions to science

During his career at the

, Dey has worked on a large number of problems on

and authored journal articles for developing theories and methods related to Bayesian modeling and inference on various types of data, such as survival, image, spatial and temporal data. His contributions to science is not only reflected in the methodological development in statistics, but also in the wide-ranging applications in many other disciplines, like public health, medicine, ecology, economics and social science.

Awards, honors and services

Dey has received numerous awards and honors thanks to his significant contributions to science: * Board of Trustees, The Indian Statistical Association * Don Owen Award, The

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= U.S. state, State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , s ...

Chapter of the

* Outstanding Statistician Award, The

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

Chapter of the

* Edward C. Marth Mentorship Award,

* Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Award,

* Elected fellow of the

* Elected member of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences * Fellow of the

* Fellow of the

* Elected member of the

Dey also served as an associate editor for many statistical journals, such as the ''

Journal of the American Statistical Association The ''Journal of the American Statistical Association (JASA)'' is the primary journal published by the American Statistical Association, the main professional body for statisticians in the United States. It is published four times a year in March, ...

'' (1997–1999) and the ''

Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference The ''Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research on statistical inference. The editors-in-chief are A. DasGupta, H. Dette and W.-L. Loh. The journal was established in 1977. Ac ...

'' (2001–2003). Dey is the editor in chief of

Sankhya ''Samkhya'' or ''Sankya'' (; Sanskrit सांख्य), IAST: ') is a dualistic school of Indian philosophy. It views reality as composed of two independent principles, ''puruṣa'' ('consciousness' or spirit); and ''prakṛti'', (nature ...

since 2016.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dey, Dipak University of Connecticut faculty American statisticians Purdue University alumni 1953 births Living people Scientists from Kolkata Indian emigrants to the United States Indian Statistical Institute alumni Texas Tech University faculty Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Fellows of the American Statistical Association Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science