PSU mathematical sciences professor gains worldwide acclaim

Dr. Jagdish Ahuja, a mathematical sciences professor at Portland State, has received and accepted a priority invitaton to be a seminar speaker at the 29th International Congress on Arts and Communications at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The conference seeks to “celebrate cross-cultural unity and diversity.” His talk will be on his most important research, that of “Recurrence Relation for Minimum Variance Unbiased Estimation of Certain Left-Truncated Poisson Distributions,” which was first published in England by the Journal of The Royal Statistical Society in 1972.

Ahuja’s invitation to this event, which takes place from June 30 to July 7, is the result of a multitude of honors received for his work in statistical distribution theory.

In 2001, Ahuja was selected to be among the first Noble Prize Medallists, an award created by the United Cultural Convention of the United States to rival that of those given annually by Stockholm, and which is awarded to those “for outstanding achievement and contributions to worldwide humanity.”

In the fall of that year, the International Biographical Centre (IBC) of Cambridge, England, invested Ahuja as a laureate of the IBC Lifetime Achievement Award, which is given only to “selected noteworthy individuals around the world for their lifetime accomplishments,” and only one out of every thousand published in the IBC’s “Who’s Who” collections.

The IBC publishes various editions of these only after thorough evaluation of each candidate’s qualifications, and will dedicate a full-page biography in one such collection, “One Thousand Great Americans,” to Ahuja in July.

Ahuja also received a gold-plated Solid Statue for his 2001 Universal Award of Accomplishment from the American Biographical Institute, which chose him for distinguished standing and conferred him with an honorary appointment to the Research Board of Advisors. The award is given to those “prominent figures who have a history of excellent achievements and whose special knowledge has had a positive impact on this society.”

This honor also affords Ahuja a place in the ABI Chronicles section of the ABI Library and Archives, which is also dedicating space in their “Premium Edition of Great Minds of the 21st Century” publication to Ahuja later this year.

As a result of these accomplishments, Ahuja used time from his current sabbatical to give several lectures at universities in India, including Banaras Hindu University, University of Allahabad, University of Mumbai, and the world-renowned Indian Statistical Institute. A professor at PSU since 1966, Ahuja feels a need “to give increased recognition to the University,” and hopes to continue to do this with his efforts around the world.