The Penn State Department of Statistics held the 2017 Rao Prize Conference on May 12, 2017, where three outstanding prize recipients were honored. The 2017 C. R. and Bhargavi Rao Prize recipient was Donald B. Rubin, the John L. Loeb Professor of Statistics at Harvard University. Paul R. Rosenbaum, the Robert G. Putzel Professor of Statistics at the Wharton School, was the 2017 C. G. Khatri Lecturer. The 2017 P. R. Krishnaiah Lecturer was Satish Iyengar, who is Professor of Statistics at the University of Pittsburgh.

The conference program consisted of these three plenary speakers, together with four invited speakers, and a poster presentation by graduate students. The four invited speakers were Samuel Kou (Professor of Statistics at Harvard University); Kari Lock Morgan (Assistant Professor of Statistics at Penn State); Joseph Schafer (Statistical Researcher at the US Census Bureau); and Dylan Small (the Class of 1965 Wharton Professor of Statistics at The Wharton School).

More information about the conference and the speakers (including videos of the talks) is online at http://stat.psu.edu/Events/2017-Rao-Prize.

The C. R. and Bhargavi Rao Prize was established to honor and recognize outstanding and influential innovations in the theory and practice of mathematical statistics, international leadership in directing statistics research, and pioneering contributions by a recognized leader in the field of statistics. The C. R. and Bhargavi Rao Prize is awarded in odd years. The 2019 Rao Prize Committee will accept nominations in 2018. The C. G. Khatri Memorial Lectureship and P. R. Krishnaiah Memorial Lectureship honor the memory of C. G. Khatri and P. R. Krishnaiah by inviting outstanding researchers in statistics to deliver lectures at Penn State. More details are on the web at http://stat.psu.edu/information/prizes-and-memorial-lectures.