Dr. Shanti Swarup Gupta
died on January 11, 2002, after a brief illness.
He was born in Saunasi,
Mainpuri, India, on January 25, 1925. After completing a master's degree in
mathematics at the University of Delhi and several years of teaching
there, he came to the United States as a Fulbright Scholar in 1953. He received
a doctorate in statistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill in 1956 and subsequently worked in statistics research at Bell Labs in
Allentown, PA.
Dr. Gupta held teaching
positions at the University of Alberta and the Courant Institute, New York
University, as well as visiting appointments at Stanford University, the
University of California-Berkeley, and the Technical University of Darmstadt,
Germany.
In 1968 he founded the
Purdue University Department of Statistics and served as department head until
1995. During this period and up to his illness, he was engaged in research and
teaching. He was a Professor of Statistics and Mathematics at Purdue University
from 1962 until his death.
His honors include Fellow
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of the American
Statistical Association, of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, as well
as Erskine Fellow of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, Honorary
Fellow of the Indian Statistical Association, Special Chair in Academia Sinica,
Taipei, Taiwan.
He was president of the
Institute of Mathematical Statistics and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of
Statistical Planning and Inference. He was a prominent scholar in the area of
statistical ranking and selection. He was the author of more than 200 published
articles and books and was the major advisor to 30 doctoral students.
Surviving are his wife
Marianne Heinicke Gupta, 104 Tecumseh Park Court, West Lafayette, IN, 47906,
and their daughter Maya Gupta of Athens, GA.
There will be a memorial
tribute in Professor Gupta's honor on March 2, 2002. The details are as
follows:
March 2, 2002, Memorial
Tribute and Reception for Shanti Gupta
Krannert Drawing Room
3:00 - 3:45 pm Memorial
Tribute
3:45 - 4:30 pm Reception
The family has requested
that in lieu of flowers donations go to the
Purdue Foundation,
c/o the Shanti S. Gupta
Fund,
West Lafayette, IN 47907.
Maya and Marianne Gupta
sincerely thank all of you, who have sent cards and messages of sympathy. We
are deeply touched by the fact that you hold Shanti in your memory and have
taken the time to let us know that. We wish we could shake the hand of each of
youto express our warmest appreciation.
Marianne and Maya
January 31, 2002