Life and Career
Mardia was educated at the Ismail Yusuf College at the University of Bombay (BSc 1955, MSc in Statistics 1957), the University of Poona (MSc in Pure Mathematics 1961), the University of Rajasthan (PhD 1965) and the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (PhD 1967, DSc 1973). He held academic positions at the Institute of Science, Mumbai and the University of Hull.
Mardia was appointed Professor of Applied Statistics and Head of the Department of Statistics in the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds in 1973. He retired in 2000 with the title Emeritus Professor and is currently Senior Research Professor of Applied Statistics at Leeds.
He was instrumental in founding the Centre of Medical Imaging Research (CoMIR) in the University of Leeds where he held the position of joint director. He was the driving force behind the exchange programs between Leeds and other scholarly centres such as the University of Granada, Spain, and the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta. He has written several scholarly books and edited conference proceedings and other special volumes.
In 1973, Mardia founded the University of Leeds Annual Statistics Research Workshops (LASR) which have run for most years and he has edited all the proceedings. These workshops attract an international audience and focus on applied statistical topics especially those involving shape and images, and more recently, bioinformatics. Due to his initiative and efforts, the Centre of Statistical Bioinformatics (CoSB), Leeds, has been recently established. Mardia is the centre's Adjunct Director.
In 2003 he was awarded the Guy Medal in Silver by the Royal Statistical Society.
He is a practicing Jain and is strict-vegetarian . His book The Scientific Foundations of Jainism is already a classic introducing Four Nobles Truths of Jains. He is Chairman of the Yorkshire Jain Foundation, and Vice-Chairman and a Trustee of the Jain Academy.
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