  Pranab Kumar Sen was born on November 7, 1937 in Calcutta, India. His father
died when Pranab was 10 years old, so his mother raised the family of seven
children. Given his superior performance on an exam, Pranab nearly went into
medical school, but did not because he was underage. He received a B.Sc. degree
in 1955 and an M.Sc. degree in 1957 in statistics from Calcutta University,
topping the class both times. Dr. Sen's dissertation on order statistics and
nonparametrics, under the direction of Professor Hari Kinkar Nandi, was
completed in 1961. After teaching for three years at Calcutta University,
1961--1964, Professor Sen came to Berkeley as a Visiting Assistant Professor in
1964. In 1965, he joined the Departments of Statistics and Biostatistics at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he has remained. Professor
Sen's pioneering contributions have touched nearly every area of statistics. He
is the first person who, in joint collaboration with Professor S. K.
Chatterjee, developed multivariate rank tests as well as time-sequential
nonparametric methods. He is also the first person who carried out in-depth
research in sequential nonparametrics culminating in his now famous Wiley book
Sequential Nonparametrics: Invariance Principles and Statistical Inference and
SIAM monograph. Professor Sen has over 600 research publications. In addition,
he has authored or co-authored 11 books and monographs, and has edited or
co-edited 11 more volumes. He has supervised over 80 Ph.D. students, many of
whom have achieved distinction both nationally and internationally. Professor
Sen is the founding co-editor of two international journals: Sequential
Analysis and Statistics and Decisions.
