IEEE Awards Booklet - 2022 - 9

2022 IEEE MEDALS
IEEE Corporate Innovation Award
Sponsored by IEEE
IEEE Honorary Membership
Sponsored by IEEE
The Argo Program
Calyampudi Radhakrishna
(C.R.) Rao
For innovation in large-scale autonomous
observations in oceanography with global
impacts in marine and climate science and
technology
Obtaining a more complete description of the physical state of
the world's oceans, their evolution, and patterns of variability than
previously possible, the Argo Program has made a profound impact
on climate change assessment and understanding, operational
oceanography, basic research in marine science, and education.
Argo is an international program that collects information from
inside the ocean using a fleet of robotic instruments (floats) that
drift with the ocean currents and move up and down between
the surface and a mid-water level. Oceans receive more than 90%
of the excess heat that is warming the Earth's climate system, and
Argo is the primary measurement of this key climate index. Argo's
measurements track the year-to-year changes of ocean warming,
both by depth and from region-to-region. As oceans warm, they
expand, and by tracking where the heat is, Argo helps unravel
drivers of sea-level variability and rise. Argo also monitors changes
in ocean environments, which greatly affect ecosystems and fisheries.
Nearly 4,000 Argo floats are spread evenly around the world.
Floats rise from a depth of 2,000 meters to the sea surface while
measuring the physical state of the ocean, repeating this cycle every
10 days. Compared to previous ship-based methods, Argo's
coverage, immediacy, and cost are unprecedented. Argo attracted
interest from ocean institutions and agencies around the world
who have collaborated on float procurement and deployment,
data communications and management, technology improvement,
and utilization of data. Deployment of Argo floats began in
1999, and the milestone of 3,000 floats was achieved in 2007-
and has continued to grow. The locations of all floats are tracked,
and all Argo data are immediately and publicly available through
the Argo Global Data Assembly Centers in France and the United
States. The Argo Program continues to innovate, with floats that
are capable of sampling to depths up to 6,000 meters and, with
the addition of biogeochemical sensors, to track changes in ocean
biogeochemistry along with physical changes.
The Argo Program is international with a virtual Program
Offi ce and a technical monitoring center (OceanOPS) based in
Brest, France.
Scope: For an outstanding innovation by an organization in an
IEEE field of interest.
For contributions to fundamental statistical
theories and their applications to engineering
and science, particularly in signal
processing and communications
Considered one of the greatest statisticians of all time, Calyampudi
Radhakrishna (C.R.) Rao's pioneering contributions to
the fundamental elements of statistical theory have profoundly
shaped aspects of signal processing, communications, information
theory, and systems that depend on advancements in detection,
estimation, and extraction of information from data. During a
career spanning over eight decades he has influenced the education
and careers of thousands of students, scholars, and practitioners.
His name is associated with a range of results that have
become second nature to most researchers in statistical methods
and data analysis. The Cramer-Rao bound is an essential tool in
inference theory where it helps identify efficient estimators; no
estimator can perform better than this bound and, if it does, then
it is the best for which we can hope. This principle has guided the
design of effective inference methods for generations. The RaoBlackwell
theorem explains how, starting from some initial crude
estimator for a parameter that is not necessarily optimal, one can
construct better estimators for it by conditioning on a sufficient
statistic. This is a remarkable and critical result in statistical inference
because it guides the design of improved estimators from
data. Much of Rao's work was in mainstream statistics popular
in the mid-20th Century covering health, biology, psychology,
and social sciences, and these were also the core strengths of the
Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Calcutta, where he worked for
four decades and became the undisputed leader of India's very
distinguished statistical research community before moving to
the United States. Rao is the author of 476 research papers, 16
books, and he was awarded 39 honorary doctorate degrees from
universities in 19 countries spanning six continents. His 1973
text Linear Statistical Inference and Its Applications (Wiley, NY) has
trained generations of students and is still an indispensable resource
for serious researchers in the field.
Recipient of the 2002 U.S. National Medal of Science, the
2009 India Science Award, and the 2011 Guy Medal in Gold
from the Royal Statistical Society, Rao is a Professor Emeritus
with Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA, and
research professor with the State University of New York at Buffalo,
Buff alo, NY, USA.
Scope: For those who have rendered meritorious service to humanity
in the IEEE's designated fields of interest and who are not
members of the IEEE.
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IEEE Awards Booklet - 2022

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