Members of the Rao Prize Committee are accepting nominations for the 2027 C.R. and Bhargavi Rao Prize for Outstanding Research in Statistics. The prize, awarded by the Penn State Department of Statistics, was established to recognize outstanding and influential innovations in the theory and practice of mathematical statistics, international leadership in directing statistical research, and pioneering contributions by a recognized leader in the field of statistics.

The Rao Prize is awarded in odd-numbered years to an individual selected by the members of the Rao Prize Committee. The honoree receives a plaque and an invitation to visit Penn State to give a talk.

Nominations should include a letter describing the nominee’s outstanding contributions to leadership and research in statistics, a current curriculum vita, and two supporting letters.

Submissions are due January 15, 2027, and should be emailed to Prof. Nicole Lazar, Head of the Department of Statistics, at nfl5182@psu.edu.

C.R. Rao held the Eberly Chair in Statistics at Penn State from 1988 to 2001 and then served as Holder Emeritus of the Eberly Chair in Statistics from 2001 until his passing in 2023. He won the International Prize in Statistics in 2023. A President’s National Medal of Science Laureate, Rao is recognized worldwide as a pioneer of modern statistical theory and one of the world’s top five statisticians, with multifaceted distinctions as a mathematician, researcher, scientist, and teacher. His contributions to mathematics and statistical theory and applications have become part of undergraduate and graduate courses in statistics, econometrics, and electrical engineering at universities throughout the world.

Past Rao Prize Honorees

2003: Bradley Efron, Stanford University

2005: Jayaram Sethuraman, Florida State University (emeritus)

2007: Lawrence D. Brown, University of Pennsylvania

2009: Peter J. Bickel, University of California at Berkeley

2011: James O. Berger, Duke University

2013: Herman Chernoff, Harvard Univ. (emeritus) and MIT

2015: Sir David Cox, University of Oxford

2017: Donald Rubin, Harvard University

2019: Grace Wahba, University of Wisconsin, Madison

2023: David Siegmund, Stanford University

2025: Trevor Hastie, Stanford University