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In Memoriam: Tryambkeshwar Dhar Dwivedi 

By Yogendra P. Chaubey, Concordia University

Professor Emeritus T. D. Dwivedi passed away in a hospital in Lucknow, India, on the morning of Dec. 23, 2008, of a heart attack following complications due to a stroke. He was 71.

Professor Tryambkeshwar Dhar Dwivedi (popularly known as Try) was born in a village in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India, approximately 175 kms from Lucknow, the capital of UP, where he had set up his residence after his retirement from Concordia University, Montreal in 1997. He is survived by his wife Uma; sons Shivendra (Neelam) and Mahendra (Shanti); daughters Veena (Greg) and Sudha (Sandeep) and grandchildren, Sushma, Supriya, Vijay, Ajay, Ravi, Maya, Sanjay and Sunil.

He received his BSc at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in the holy city Varanasi, India, with a joint major in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics in 1958 and completed his MSc (Mathematics) degree under the mentorship of Professor R.S. Mishra, well known in the field of Differential Geometry, at the University of Gorakhpur (in 1961) and a second master’s degree in Mathematics at the University of Ottawa in 1964. He published his first research paper in 1967.

While on a sightseeing tour in Montreal in 1965, he visited the Department of Mathematics at Concordia University (then known as Sir George Williams University) and was offered a lecturer’s position that he accepted. He spent the rest of his career at Concordia and was instrumental in establishing the Department’s Statistics Group as well as developing the undergraduate program in Statistics. During this period, while working full time, he was a Ph.D. student in Statistics and secured his doctorate in 1974. He was promoted to Professor in 1980.

Professor Dwivedi made many contributions to Statistics and to the Canadian statistical community. He established the Research Service Center for statistical consulting. While working on a project with Canadian Pacific Railway, he discovered the power of Ridge Regression and wrote an important monograph on this topic. Later he contributed significantly to various areas in Econometrics through a long research collaboration with Professor V. K. Srivastava (Lucknow University, India). His research continued in this area while he got involved in other aspects of applied statistics, such as finite population sampling.

His vision of organizing the statistical community of Canada led him to establish the tradition of decennial conferences in Applied Statistics held at Concordia University from 1971 to 2001. The success of the conference “Statistics 1971 Canada” resulted in the creation of the Statistical Society of Canada and he served as its founding president.

After his retirement, Professor Dwivedi spent most of his time in India managing a College that he had established in his home town in memory of his mother, and worked towards establishing a charitable hospital in Ayodhya, India.

He was also very involved in the Indian community. His unfailing energy, his friendship, his helpful nature, his commitment to his family, his dedication to his students put him on a level which cannot be matched by many individuals.

He will be sorely missed by the statistical community, his family and friends. In the words of a leading statistician, “He was not only an energetic scholar but also a leader among men. I liked him and always admired him not only because of his academic side but also (primarily) because of dedication to his family, his roots, the society of his origin and not the least the faith of his forefathers and of his own. I am sure not only his friends such as me but also his colleagues and the generations of students he taught will miss him and for some time mourn the loss and long cherish his memory.”