Shanti Swarup Gupta (January 25, 1925 â February 24, 2002) was an Indian-American statistician who served as the founding head of the department of statistics at Purdue University. He is best known for his pioneering work in ranking and selection theory, a branch of statistics used to determine the "best" populations among a group of candidates.
Gupta was born in Saunasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. He attended the University of Delhi where he earned Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in mathematics in 1943 and 1946, respectively. He then enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he completed his Ph.D. in statistics in 1956 under the supervision of Raj Chandra Bose. His dissertation, titled On a Decision Rule for a Problem in Ranking Means, laid the groundwork for his future research in selection procedures.
After briefly working at Bell Labs, Gupta joined the faculty of Purdue University in 1962. At the time, statistics was part of the department of mathematics. In 1968, he became the founding head of Purdue's newly established department of statistics, a position he held until 1995. During his tenure, he transformed the department into a globally recognized center for statistical research. He authored or co-authored over 200 research papers and several influential books, most notably the 1979 Wiley publication Multiple Decision Procedures: Theory and Methodology of Selecting and Ranking Populations.
Shanti S. Gupta was a pivotal figure for the Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, serving as an editor from its founding in 1977, then later as editor-in-chief during the late 1990s up until late 2001.
Gupta was an active leader in the international statistics community. His contributions were recognized through several prestigious appointments, including:
In honor of his contributions, Purdue University established the Shanti S. Gupta Distinguished Professorship in Statistics. He is credited with mentoring over 30 doctoral students, many of whom became prominent statisticians themselves.