George Ross Ihaka (born 1954[2]) is a New Zealand statistician who was an associate professor of statistics at the University of Auckland until his retirement in 2017.

[4][5][6] In 2008, Ihaka received the Pickering Medal, awarded by the Royal Society of New Zealand, for his work on R.[7] Ihaka completed his undergraduate education at the University of Auckland, and obtained his PhD in 1985 from the University of California, Berkeley supervised by David R.

[1] His thesis was on statistical modelling for seismic interferometry and was titled Rūaumoko, after the god of earthquakes, volcanoes and seasons in Māori mythology.

[10][11] The Department of Statistics at the University of Auckland started a public lecture series in his honour in 2017.

[12] Ihaka is of Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitāne and Ngati Pākehā (New Zealand European) descent.