Kantilal Vardichand "Kanti" Mardia (born 1935) is an Indian-British statistician specialising in

directional statistics Directional statistics (also circular statistics or spherical statistics) is the subdiscipline of statistics that deals with directions (unit vectors in Euclidean space, R''n''), axes ( lines through the origin in R''n'') or rotations in R''n''. ...

multivariate analysis Multivariate statistics is a subdivision of statistics encompassing the simultaneous observation and analysis of more than one outcome variable, i.e., '' multivariate random variables''. Multivariate statistics concerns understanding the differ ...

geostatistics Geostatistics is a branch of statistics focusing on spatial or spatiotemporal datasets. Developed originally to predict probability distributions of ore grades for mining operations, it is currently applied in diverse disciplines including pet ...

, statistical

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops methods and Bioinformatics software, software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics uses biology, ...

and

statistical shape analysis Statistical shape analysis is an analysis of the geometry, geometrical properties of some given set of shapes by statistical methods. For instance, it could be used to quantify differences between male and female gorilla skull shapes, normal and pa ...

. He was born in

Sirohi Sirohi is a town, located in Sirohi district in southern Rajasthan state in western India. It is the administrative headquarters of Sirohi District and was formerly the capital of the princely state of Sirohi ruled by Deora Chauhan Rajput ...

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; Literal translation, lit. 'Land of Kings') is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the List of states and union territories of ...

, India in a Jain family and now resides and works in

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

. He is known for his series of tests of multivariate normality based measures of multivariate skewness and kurtosis as well as work on the statistical measures of shape.

Life and career

Mardia was educated at the

Ismail Yusuf College Ismail Yusuf College, is the fourth oldest college of Mumbai, India. ''"I Y college"'', as it is popularly known, is managed by Government of Maharashtra. It is the oldest college in North Mumbai. It was established in 1930 with a large donati ...

at the

University of Bombay University of Mumbai is a public university, public List of largest universities and university networks by enrollment, state university in Mumbai. It is one of the List of largest universities and university networks by enrollment, largest univ ...

(BSc 1955, MSc in statistics 1957), the

University of Poona Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), formerly the University of Pune, is a public state university located in the city of Pune, India. It was established in 1949, and is spread over a campus in the neighbourhood of Ganeshkhind. The uni ...

(MSc in pure mathematics 1961), the

University of Rajasthan The University of Rajasthan, informally known as Rajasthan University (RU, ISO: Rājasthān Viśvavidyālaya), is a public state university located in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. It was founded in 1947 by an Act of the State Legislative Assembl ...

(PhD 1965) and the

University of Newcastle Upon Tyne Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a public university, public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is a red brick un ...

(PhD 1967, DSc 1973). He held academic positions at the Institute of Science, Mumbai and the

University of Hull The University of Hull is a public research university in Kingston upon Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1927 as University College Hull. The main university campus is located in Hull and is home to the Hu ...

. Mardia was appointed professor of applied statistics and head of the Department of Statistics in the School of Mathematics at the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

in 1973. He retired in 2000 with the title

emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

professor and is currently senior research professor of applied statistics at

, where he has held the Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship since 2017. He has been a long-term visiting professor at the University of Oxford since 2013, and was adjunct faculty with the

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM Ahmedabad or IIM-A), is a business school, located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. It is one of the Indian Institutes of Management and was accorded the status of an Institute of National Impor ...

from 2012 to 2014. He helped establish both the Centre of Medical Imaging Research (CoMIR) and the Centre of Statistical Bioinformatics (CoSB) at Leeds, and was initially the director of CoMIR. He has written several books and edited conference proceedings. In 1973, Mardia founded the University of Leeds Annual Statistics Research Workshops, designed to promote interdisciplinary research. These workshops attract an international audience and focus on applied statistical topics. Mardia has received a number of honours, including a 2003 Guy Medal in Silver from the

Royal Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...

, which noted "his many path breaking contributions to statistical science ... and his lasting leadership role in interdisciplinary research"; the 2013

Wilks Memorial Award The Wilks Memorial Award is awarded by the American Statistical Association to recognize outstanding contributions to statistics. It was established in 1964 and is awarded yearly. It is named in memory of the statistician Samuel S. Wilks. The awa ...

from the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 27, 1839, and is the second-oldest continuous ...

, which noted his "seminal results in shape analysis, spatial statistics, multivariate analysis, directional data analysis, and bioinformatics"; the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Indian Statistical Association; the 2020 Mahatma Gandhi Medal of Honour from the NRI Institute; and the 2021 OneJAIN Life Achievement Award from the Jain All-Party Parliamentary Group. He is the founding Vice-President of International Indian Statistical Association, and a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, the

Institute of Mathematical Statistics The Institute of Mathematical Statistics is an international professional and scholarly society devoted to the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability. The Institute currently has about 4,000 members in all parts ...

, and the Royal Statistical Society. The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology's 2020 Virtual Symposium on Directional Statistics was dedicated to Mardia. He gave the 40th Fisher Memorial Lecture on 18 November 2022 at the Oxford Mathematical Institute. A

festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

honoring his work resulted in an edited volume, ''Geometry Driven Statistics''. He is a practicing Jain and strict vegetarian. His 1990 book ''The Scientific Foundations of Jainism'' introduced the Four Noble Truths of Jains. He founded the Yorkshire Jain Foundation. Mardia was appointed

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(OBE) in the

2023 New Year Honours The 2023 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 15 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebratio ...

for services to statistical science.

Books

*''Families of Bivariate Distributions'' (1970) *''Multivariate Analysis'', coauthored with John T. Kent and John Bibby (1979) *''Directional Statistics'', coauthored with Peter Jupp, (1999) (first published under the title ''Statistics of Directional Data,'' 1972) *''Bayesian Methods in Structural Bioinformatics'', co-edited with Thomas Hamelryck and Jesper Ferkinghoff-Borg (2012) *''Statistical Shape Analysis'', coauthored with Ian L. Dryden (2016) (first edition 1998) *''Spatial Analysis'', coauthored with John T. Kent (2022) *''The Scientific Foundations of Jainism'' (1990) *''Living Jainism: An Ethical Science'', coauthored with Aidan Rankin (2013)

Mardia Prize

The Mardia Prize, awarded by the Royal Statistical Society, was founded by Mardia in 2015 to foster collaboration between statisticians and scientists via "workshops in emerging interdisciplinary areas". The first award was given in 2016 (Topic: renewable natural resources management, food security, climate change and the illegal wildlife trade) with the second in 2018 (Topic:

extreme weather Extreme weather includes unexpected, unusual, severe weather, severe, or unseasonal weather; weather at the extremes of the historical distribution—the range that has been seen in the past. Extreme events are based on a location's recorded weat ...

research) and the third in 2019 (Topic: economics of mental health).

References

External links

University of Leeds Faculty Profile, Kanti MardiaArchived
30 September, 2024

by Fred Bookstein.
Yorkshire Jain FoundationIn Conversation with Prof. Kanti V. Mardia . . .
in Research Newsletter of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. February 2009. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mardia, Kanti Directional statistics Savitribai Phule Pune University alumni University of Rajasthan alumni University of Mumbai alumni Alumni of Newcastle University Academics of the University of Hull Academics of the University of Leeds Fellows of the American Statistical Association Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Living people 1935 births People from Sirohi district British Jains Spatial statisticians Indian emigrants to England Officers of the Order of the British Empire British statisticians Indian statisticians Ismail Yusuf College alumni