N. Unnikrishnan Nair obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Kerala, India and was conferred the degree of Doctor of Human Letters (honoris causa) by the Juniata College, USA. He was Professor and Chair, Department of Statistics, Dean, Faculty of Science and the Vice-Chancellor of the Cochin University of Science and Technology in India. He is a Fellow and past President of the Indian Society for Probability and Statistics, as well as an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. Dr. Nair has published 150 peer reviewed research papers and is an author, editor, or contributor of several books for publishers including Birkhauser, Boston and Education Book Distributors (and others in foreign languages).