A (Statistically) Significant Achievement
Dr. Choudur Lakshminarayan was recently recognized as an elected member of the International Statistical Institute
One look at Stevens Teaching Professor Choudur Lakshminarayan’s CV and it’s easy to calculate the probability of achieving his most recent honor.
Dr. Lakshminarayan, who teaches statistics and is a Stevens Institute for Artificial Intelligence member, was recently bestowed elected membership into the International Statistical Institute (ISI). The ISI was founded in 1885 with the purpose of promoting the “understanding, development, and good practice of statistics worldwide by providing a welcoming environment for advancing statistical knowledge, learning best practices, sharing state-of-the-art developments, and by creating opportunities to network.”
“I started as a statistician in 1989, and to be recognized for the body of work that people think I created is significant to me,” he said. “Statistics has given me a lot. It's given me more than I had expected out of this life. It is gratifying to be recognized by others who think I have contributed something to the society.”
The election process includes a nomination, letters of support and a vote by the ISI Elections Committee. Lakshminarayan garnered both domestic and international support, with colleagues at American University, the University of Florida, the University of Connecticut and Italy’s University of Milan.
Elected members come from academia, government, national statistical offices, national banks and industry. They hold a special status inside the organization, receiving invitations to participate in conferences and workshops, as well as give keynote presentations at events around the world.
The ISI is the second major statistical organization to honor his work. In 2022, he was named a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, a title achieved by only 0.3% of eligible members each year.
“We start as members of that society, and as we build our careers, the committee of Fellows elected by ASA examines a candidate’s body of work and determines eligibility for granting the honorary rank of a Fellow,” he explained. “A Fellow is someone who has made significant contributions to the statistical field, statistical profession, statistical research, statistical teaching, etc.”
Lakshminarayan’s appointment at Stevens in the fall of 2022 was his first full-time teaching position after more than 30 years as an industry professional and adjunct professor. He began his career at Johnson & Johnson while completing his Ph.D. at the University of Texas in Arlington. He held positions at Texas Instruments, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, including a stint as the principal research scientist in its Big Data Advanced Research and Development Center, and Teradata Labsas an engineering fellow and chief data scientist. Dr. Lakshminarayan’s work in the classroom included stops at UT-Dallas, UT-Austin, American University, the Indian Institute of Information Technology Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad.
“I spent most of my life in industry research labs, but early on, I realized that unless I had a foot in academia, my career as a mathematical statistician would not be complete,” he said. “When I started at Texas Instruments, I taught at the University of Texas at Dallas, and when I moved to HP Labs, I taught at UT-Austin as an adjunct faculty for a number of years, conducting many workshops and advising Ph.D. students. All along, there was always this urge for me to look into a full-time academic position.”
His practical research and analytical expertise led to the creation of the “Foundations of Business Analytics” course that he currently teaches and is a requirement for Stevens’ Business Analytics and Artificial Intelligence mater’s program.
“What I find with my students is that they are very good at computing, but they sometimes struggle understanding the first principles grounded in theory,” he shared. “I realized that building that solid foundation is the most important thing, so I created the “Foundations of Business Analytics.” To me data science and analytics is based four principal subjects—calculus, linear algebra, probability and statistics, and statistical theory. I created a course that combines all those four things together.”
Lakshminarayan’s wealth of experience and knowledge gained by his decades of professional experience are a perfect fit for the School of Business’ focus on teaching solutions and skills applicable in the real world.
“My industry experience is one of the things I pride myself as a teacher,” he said. “A long time ago, a distinguished colleague and a highly decorated scientist gave me great advice. When you work on typical problem, you find a Band-Aid to fix that problem that day, and then you move on to another problem. But what's more important is that the Band-Aid is not the real solution. Understanding what was the underlying issues that created the problem is the most important thing. That convinced me that theory is at the heart of any problem that we solved. Any industry problem that you look at is based on rigorous, solid science, so I spent a lot of time studying the theory. That's what helps me point out to students some of the things that they ought to be looking at and keeping their eyes open for when they're approaching these problems.”