Two New Faculty Members
The Department is very pleased to announce that two new Assistant Professors are joining our ranks this summer!
Dr. Benjamin Bloem-Reddy will take up his appointment on July 1, 2019. Ben obtained his Ph.D. in Statistics from Columbia University in 2017 then subsequently was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford. His work in statistical learning and applied probability delves into new methods and theory for the analysis of structured data, such as networks.
Lucy Mosquera receives PIMS travel support
Our M.Sc. student Lucy Mosquera received support from the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) for attending and presenting a poster at the recent Atlantic Causal Inference Conference (ACIC) 2019 in Montreal (worth CAD 1,250).
Department’s Ph.D. students Xin Ding and Qiong Zhang winners at 2019 SSC Annual Meeting
We were pleased to hear news from the 2019 Statistical Society of Canada (SSC) Annual Meeting that two of our Statistics Ph.D. students, Xin Ding and Qiong Zhang, won the Case Study #1 category (https://ssc.ca/en/case-study/case-study-1-counting-cells-microscopic-images) in the 2019 Case Studies in Data Analysis Competition at this year’s SSC Annual Meeting.
Qiong and Xin were mentored in the work on the case study by Professor Will Welch.
Lucy Mosquera receives the 2018 Rick White Award
The Rick White Award recognizes students who demonstrate excellence in statistical science through collaboration with investigators in another discipline on a substantial application. The award honours the memory of Rick White, who served the department and the university with his gifts in Applied Statistics.
Jonathan Agyeman wins the 2018 GTA Award
Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) play a vital role in our department. Every year since 2011, we have recognized the excellent work of our GTAs through the Department of Statistics’ Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) Award.
Huaiwen Dong receives this year’s Nash Medal
The Nash Medal this year is awarded to Huaiwen Dong. Huaiwen has completed a major in Statistics and a minor in Arts, and she will graduate with distinction. Throughout her academic career, Huaiwen has received many honours and awards, including the Dr. John and Barbara Petkau Scholarship in Statistics. Huaiwen has also contributed greatly to the undergraduate student community through her involvement with the Undergraduate Statistics Society.
Bioinformatics student Rebecca Asiimwe wins 2018-19 Data Science Award
We are happy to announce that the winner of the 2019 Data Science Award is UBC Bioinformatics M.Sc. student Rebecca Asiimwe.
Congratulations to the 2018 Marshall Prize co-winners, Harlan Campbell and Eric Fu!
The Departmental Awards Committee is pleased to announce that the co-winners of the 2018 Marshall Prize are Eric Fu and Harlan Campbell. Their PhD supervisors are respectively Nancy Heckman and Paul Gustafson. Eric defended his PhD thesis in February and Harlan will be defending soon. Both have accomplished independent research in their theses with several published and/or submitted papers.
Professor Jim Zidek awarded the 2019 David Rees Distinguished Visiting Fellowship
Professor Jim Zidek has been awarded the 2019 David Rees Distinguished Visiting Fellowship that enables mathematical scientists to visit the University of Exeter. The announcement for the Award states that “during the period of their visit at the University, David Rees Fellows will:
Statistics Associate Professor Alex Bouchard-Côté wins Young Faculty Award
Statistics Associate Professor Alex Bouchard-Côté has just received the 2018 UBC/PIMS Mathematical Sciences Young Faculty Award.
In addition to receiving a monetary award, Alex will give a PIMS-UBC Distinguished Colloquium lecture in the fall. You can read PIMS's announcement, which includes some nice background information, here: https://www.pims.math.ca/news/alexandre-bouchard-c%C3%B4t%C3%A9-wins-2018-pims-ubc-young-faculty-award.
Congratulations, Alex!