Shailaja Deshmukh is a visiting faculty at the Department of Statistics, Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU, formerly known as the University of Pune). She was earlier Professor of Statistics and Head of the Department of Statistics, SPPU. She worked as a visiting professor at the Department of Statistics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, during 2009–10. She has taught around twenty-five different theoretical and applied courses. Her areas of interest are inference in stochastic processes, applied probability, actuarial statistics and micro array data analysis. She has several research publications in various Sci/Scopus listed journals. She has served as executive editor and chief editor of the Journal of the Indian Statistical Association and is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. She has published six books.
Vidyagouri Prayag worked as Reader in Statistics in Modern College, Pune and has extensive experience in teaching Statistics, Statistical Ecology, Actuarial Statistics and Computer Programming to undergraduate and postgraduate students. After working in academics, she moved to Cytel Statistical Software and Services where she gained experience in the development of Statistical Software in the Clinical Trials domain. She worked as Subject Matter Expert, Quality Assurance Manager and Technical Writer in Cytel for more than a decade. She has offered statistical consultancy to researchers and NGOs. She has to her credit several research papers in the area of Statistical Ecology, Nutrition and Linguistics, and authored undergraduate and post graduate textbooks.