This article is from the archives of the UB Reporter.
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Published: April 5, 2012

Calyampudi Radhakrishna (C.R.) Rao, research professor in the Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health and Health Professions, recently received three honorary degrees. He was awarded a DSc from University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, in December 2011; a DSc from Karanatak University, Dharwad, India, in January; and a DLitt (Vachaspati) from International Sanskrit University, Tirupati, India, in February.

The degrees are the 34th, 35th and 36th honorary degrees Rao has received from universities in 19 countries spanning six continents.

Last summer, he was awarded the prestigious Guy Medal in Gold from the Royal Statistical Society, the United Kingdom’s only professional society for statisticians.

The Guy Medal in Gold is awarded triennially to those “who are judged to have merited a signal mark of distinction by reason of their innovative contributions to the theory or application of statistics.”

The Human Biology Association (HBA) has announced that A. Theodore Steegmann Jr., professor emeritus of anthropology, is the recipient of its 2012 Franz Boas Distinguished Achievement Award. The award is named for Franz Boas (1858-1942), the founder of modern anthropology and the father of American anthropology.

Steegmann, who was on the UB faculty from 1966 to 2004, and chaired the Department of Anthropology from 1979-88, is widely regarded as one of the world's leading researchers on the biology of cold adaptation among both contemporary and prehistoric human populations. His influential work over the past 40 years has transformed our understanding of how humans adapt to extreme environmental stressors, including cold, under-nutrition, hard physical work and toxic substances.