Dr. Manisha Pal

Manisha Pal, a trailblazing statistician, was the first woman to get a Ph.D. degree in Statistics from the University of Calcutta. With an illustrious career spanning almost four decades at Calcutta University, she served as the Head of the Statistics Department for two terms and as Convener of the Ph.D. Research Advisory Committee in Statistics for five years. Post-retirement in 2022, she was invited by St. Xavier's University, Kolkata to join its Statistics Department, established the same year, in order to help out with its development. She served as a Senior Professor of the department for two years, and also as the Head of the Department for a year, and is currently an Adjunct Professor. She has visited various institutions in India and abroad for delivering invited talks, collaborative research and teaching assignments.

Recognized for her teaching and research excellence, she received the International Distinguished Research Excellence Award in Statistics from the Center for Professional Advancement, India, and the Shiksha-Ratna Award from the West Bengal Government in 2021. Dr. Pal is also a recipient of the Young Scientist Award at the Platinum Jubilee Celebration of the Calcutta University Colleges of Science & Technology in 1989. She is the first female President of the Calcutta Statistical Association, a Vice-President of the Society of Statistics, Computer and Applications, New Delhi and is an elected Fellow of the West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology. She has also been an Executive Committee member in various Societies. She is an Editor of two academic journals, and has served as an expert in recruitment boards for the Government of India.

Dr. Pal's research interests lie in the areas of Operations Research, Reliability Inference, Mixture Experiments and Sequential Estimation. She has published more than 130 research articles in national and international journals of repute, as well as two books, which have been highly acclaimed.