Suraj Bandyopadhyay (Ph.D., Sociology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada) was, before his retirement, Professor of Sociology and Head, Sociological Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. He is currently attached to Sociological Research Unit and Statistics-Mathematics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, as an Honorary Visiting Scientist. For his academic performance in McGill University he was awarded Bobbs-Merrill Award in Sociology in 1968. He had received a number of academic invitations and Fellowships from different international institutions like Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA, Ottawa), Centre for Developing-Area Studies (McGill University), International Data Library and Reference Service of the Survey Research Centre at University of California (Berkeley, U.S.A.), Overseas Development Group at University of East Anglia (Norwich, UK), etc. He has served as expert member in academic committees of different institutions and published more than thirty research papers. A. Ramachandra Rao (Ph.D., Indian Statistical Institute) is a Professor in the Division of Theoretical Statistics and Mathematics of the Indian Statistical Institute at Kolkata. He was a Visiting assistant professor in the University of Minnesota for one year. He published more than 25 research papers in Graph Theory, is a joint author of a book on Linear Algebra at the honours level and edited the Proceedings of three Conferences on Graph Theory. His major interests are Graph Theory and its Applications to Social Sciences and Linear Algebra. Bikas K Sinha (Ph.D., Statistics, Calcutta University) is a Professor of Statistics in the Division of Theoretical Statistics and Mathematics of the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. He was a recipient of PCMahalanobis Medal in 1980. He has served as an Expert on Mission in Survey Methodology for the United Nations and has also served as a Consultant for US Environmental Protection Agency [EPA]. He has traveled extensively and visited a host of universities in USA, Canada, Germany, Finland, Poland and other countries as a Visiting Faculty / Research Collaborator. He has more than 110 research articles in refereed journals, one graduate-level text book [Wiley, NY] and two Research Monographs [Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes Series in Statistics Publications]. He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. His range of expertise includes survey theory and methods, design of experiments, statistical modeling and statistical inference.
