Forest products have a complex variability and, as a biomaterial, are inherently stochastic. Faculty in the Department analyze forest product data using advanced statistical methods in areas such as survey sampling, survival analysis, nonparametric Bayesian analysis and the handling of big data. The group has made novel contributions to statistical science that transfer to other domains and has solved long standing problems in wood science. And something that rarely is the case - statisticians have run their own experiments and data collection.
Since 2009, more than 60 researchers have been involved in this area, studying the properties of wood products, working on projects such as the development of engineering standards, monitoring for changes in product properties over time, subset selection methods for species grouping in the marketing of lumber and the duration of load effect in construction. The group is made up of statisticians from UBC and SFU - faculty, students and staff - and collaborating scientists at FPInnovations Vancouver, funded by Collaborative Research and Development Grants awards under NSERC’s Forest Sector R & D Initiative.