Xi'an's Og

Just learned this day that Professor A. K. Md. Ehsanes Saleh passed away in early September. I first met him sometimes in the Fall of 1987, while visiting (from Purdue where I was visiting professor) my wife in Ottawa (where she was pursuing a Master in Electrical Engineering). I knew of his papers on shrinkage and pre-test estimators and dropped by Carleton University, where he taught and worked most of his life, for a casual talk. He was incredibly welcoming and friendly to an unknown junior researcher who had dropped by with no warning on a Friday afternoon. We then kept in touch about research projects and he made me an offer to visit Carleton over the Summer of 1988, with a welcome financial support that allowed us to rent a better lodging by the University of Ottawa (which my wife kept for the following year). This suited me most perfectly as I could spend the summer (May-August) with my wife and work with Professor Saleh on shrinkage topics, which was most enjoyable (if not immensely innovative), although the move involved a non-stop 14h drive from West Lafayette to Ottawa! The whole group of statisticians and probabilists at Carleton was unbelievably friendly as well and contributed, along with the stressless atmosphere of the Canadian capital and the endless nearby parks, to make that summer of 1988 a fabulous one. We renewed the experiment the following summer of 1989, when I left Cornell at the end of their semester, again a great one, when I also met Tatsuya Kubokawa who was visiting Professor Saleh as well. After those two years, I had very few opportunities to visit Ottawa and hence to meet him again, even though I remember having lunch with him at a Franco-Canadian meeting in 2008. I do and will remember him as a humble and selfless man, despite his accomplishments of being the first Bangladeshi statistician in receiving many awards and distinctions, always amicable and full of tolerance and helpful advice.