Professor Malay Ghosh, a world-renowned authority on the theory of statisticshas received an honorary doctorate (honoris causa) from the University of Economics in Katowice

14.05.2021

We are pleased and honoured to announce that Professor Malay Ghosh has received an honorary doctorate (honoris causa) from the University of Economics in Katowice in recognition of his outstanding achievements in the field of statistics and its applications, as well as popularising statistical sciences and promoting international and interdisciplinary scientific cooperation.

Professor Malay Ghosh is a world-renowned authority on the theory of statistics and its applications, among others, in economic and social sciences, who has been cooperating with Poland for many years: with Statistics Poland and the Polish Statistical Society (mainly through 'Statistics in Transition - new series' [SiTns]), and with academic centres of statistical sciences (mainly in Katowice and Poznań).

Malay Ghosh was born on April 15, 1944 in Calcutta, where he completed his BA studies (aged 18) and graduate studies at the University of Calcutta (aged 20). At the age of 25, he obtained his PhD in mathematical statistics from the University of North Carolina, USA. Currently he holds a position of Distinguished Professor at the Department of Statistics, University of Florida.

Professor Ghosh is the author or co-author of over 310 scientific publications in the field of statistics and its applications, and his works enjoy great citation in the scientific community, in many empirical disciplines. The professor's scientific achievements provide theoretical and methodological foundations for statistical analyses not only in economic and social sciences, but also in natural, medical and technical sciences and in agriculture.

Professor Ghosh's particular research interests are small area statistics and Bayesian estimation procedures, along with their applications for purposes of statistical offices and companies conducting market research (e.g. consumer), opinion polls, etc.

Professor Ghosh leads a very active scientific life on a global scale, including, inter alia, participation in scientific conferences organised in Poland. For example, he has repeatedly participated in the cyclical conference 'Survey Sampling in Economic and Social Research', organised by the Department of Statistics at the University of Economics in Katowice (in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2017).

Professor Ghosh was an honorary guest of the 1st Congress of Polish Statistics in Poznań on the occasion of the 100^th anniversary of the Polish Statistical Association (in April 2012), during which he was - in recognition of his contribution to world and Polish statistics - awarded the Jerzy Neyman Medal, newly established at that time by the PSA in honour of the most outstanding statistician of Polish origin, one of the precursors of modern statistics, next to Karl Pearson and Ronald Fisher.

Professor Ghosh's participation in the conference 'Small Area Estimation' (SAE), organized by the Poznań University of Economics and Statistics Poland in September 2014, was also significant, where he delivered a lecture on the role of the Bayesian approach and benchmarking in the statistics of small areas. As a long-standing member of SiTns' Associate Editors, he was then invited to become a member of the journal's Editorial Board. Out of the outstanding activities in collaboration with SiTns mention should be made of the co-organisation of the publication of two thematic issues containing selected papers from the SAE conference (in 2015 and 2016).

Recent contribution of Professor Ghosh's to the Special Issue of SiTns - organised by Professor Partha Lahiri on Statistical Data Integration (August 2020) - has been of particular value since it was an invited paper based on prestigious 28th Annual Morris Hansen's Lecture on Small Area Estimation: Its Evolution in Five Decades.