Retired statistics professor honored by American Statistical Association

Florida State University statistics Professor Emeritus Jayaram Sethuraman received the American Statistical Association’s Noether Senior Scholar Award Aug. 6 at the 2013 Joint Statistical Meeting, the largest gathering of statisticians in North America.

The award is given annually to a distinguished senior researcher or teacher in nonparametric statistics. It is named for Gottfried E. Noether, a leading scholar in nonparametric statistics who died in 1991, and includes a monetary prize and plaque, and also gives the recipient an opportunity to deliver an invited lecture.

“‘Sethu’ is a world-famous leader in the field of mathematical statistics, probability theory and image analysis, with an outstanding record of teaching, research and creativity, and service to the department and the university. The department and I are extremely happy that he received this prestigious award,” said Xufeng Niu, chairman of the Florida State’s Department of Statistics.

Sethuraman served as chairman of Florida State’s Department of Statistics from 1987 to 1990. He was named Florida State’s 1993-1994 Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor, which is the highest honor the university’s faculty bestows on one of its own.

In 2004, the year he retired from Florida State, Sethuraman was awarded a Fulbright Scholar Award for 2004-2005 to lecture for six months at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. This was his second Fulbright Award.

Sethuraman earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in statistics from Madras University in India in 1957 and 1958, respectively, and a doctorate from the Indian Statistical Institute in 1962.

Florida State statistics Professor Emeritus Myles Hollander received the Noether Senior Scholar Award in 2003.