Nairanjana Dasgupta’s life has been shaped by serendipity and survival. Born under extraordinary circumstances when her mother, at over 40, discovered her pregnancy after needing surgery, the odds of her survival were slim. Growing up on a small university campus near the Himalayas, Dasgupta developed an early love for numbers, logic, and word puzzles. Torn between mathematics and English at 18, she was introduced to statistics and her decision proved to be transformative. She is now a Regents professor at Washington State University and president of the Western North American Region of the International Biometric Society.
