Pranab Kumar Sen (born 7 November 1937 in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

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 ...

)Curriculum vitae
, retrieved 2011-07-03. is a statistician, a professor of statistics and the Cary C. Boshamer Professor of Biostatistics at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

.Faculty profile
UNC Chapel Hill, retrieved 2011-07-03.

Academic biography

Sen was the second of seven siblings; his father, a railway officer, died of leukemia when Sen was ten, and he was raised by his mother, the daughter of a

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

. He began his undergraduate studies at

Presidency College, Kolkata Presidency University, Kolkata (formerly known as Presidency College, Kolkata) is a second major public state aided research university located in College Street, Kolkata. Considered as one of best colleges when Presidency College was affili ...

, initially intending to study medicine but shifting to statistics when it was discovered that he was too young for medical college. He received a B.S. from the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a public collegiate state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered one of best state research university all over India every year, ...

in 1955, an M.Sc. in 1957, and a Ph.D. in 1962; his

doctoral advisor A doctoral advisor (also dissertation director, dissertation advisor; or doctoral supervisor) is a member of a university faculty whose role is to guide graduate students who are candidates for a doctorate, helping them select coursework, as well ...

was Hari Kinkar Nandi. He taught for three years at the University of Calcutta and one more year at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

before joining the UNC faculty in 1965; although he has held visiting positions at other universities, he has remained at Chapel Hill for the rest of his career. He was the founding co-editor of two journals, ''Sequential Analysis'' and ''Statistics and Decisions'', and was joint editor-in-chief of the ''Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference'' from 1980 to 1983.

Research and graduate advising

Sen is the author or co-author of multiple books on

non-parametric statistics Nonparametric statistics is the branch of statistics that is not based solely on parametrized families of probability distributions (common examples of parameters are the mean and variance). Nonparametric statistics is based on either being dist ...

, the advisor of over 80 Ph.D. students, and the author of over 600 research publications. He is known for inventing the Hodges–Lehmann estimator independently of and contemporaneously with Hodges and Lehmann and for the

Theil–Sen estimator In non-parametric statistics, the Theil–Sen estimator is a method for robustly fitting a line to sample points in the plane ( simple linear regression) by choosing the median of the slopes of all lines through pairs of points. It has also b ...

, a form of

robust regression In robust statistics, robust regression seeks to overcome some limitations of traditional regression analysis. A regression analysis models the relationship between one or more independent variables and a dependent variable. Standard types of ...

that fits a line to two-dimensional sample points by choosing the slope of the fit line to be the median of the slopes of the lines through pairs of samples.

Awards and honors

Sen is a fellow of 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 ...

and of 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 ...

. He became the Cary C. Boshamer Professor in 1982. He was the Lukacs Distinguished Visiting Professor at

Bowling Green State University Bowling Green State University (BGSU) is a public research university in Bowling Green, Ohio. The main academic and residential campus is south of Toledo, Ohio. The university has nationally recognized programs and research facilities in the ...

in 1996–1997. In 2002, he won the Gottfried E. Noether Senior Scholar Award of the American Statistical Association, and he was the 2010 winner of the Wilks Memorial Award of the ASA "for outstanding contributions to statistical research, especially in nonparametric statistics and biostatistics; and for exceptional service in mentoring doctoral students." The Government of India awarded him the civilian honour of

Padma Shri Padma Shri ( IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is conf ...

in 2011. In 2012, the

awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science degree. In 2007, a

festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

was dedicated to him on the occasion of his 70th birthday...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sen, Pranab Kumar 1937 births Living people American statisticians Indian statisticians Presidency University, Kolkata alumni University of Calcutta alumni Academic staff of the University of Calcutta University of California, Berkeley faculty University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty Recipients of the Padma Shri in civil service Fellows of the American Statistical Association 20th-century Indian mathematicians Scientists from Kolkata Mathematical statisticians