Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) is an academic institute of national importance as recognized by a 1959 act of the Indian parliament. It grew out of the Statistical Laboratory set up by Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis in Presidency College, Kolkata. Established in 1931, this public university of India is one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions focused on statistics, and its early reputation led it to being adopted as a model for the first US institute of Statistics set up at the Research Triangle, North Carolina by Gertrude Mary Cox.