Two
faculty
members
have
been
awarded
the
2020
Faculty
of
Mathematics
Golden
Jubilee
Research
Excellence
Award.
Pengfei
Li
and
William
Slofstra
are
each
awarded
$2,500.
“Congratulations
to
the
awardees,”
said
Anita
Layton,
associate
dean,
research
and
international.
“We
received
outstanding
nominations
throughout
the
Faculty
of
Mathematics
which
speak
to
the
scholarly
accomplishments
of
our
professors.
The
two
awardees
have
made
exceptional
contributions
to
their
fields."
Li,
a
professor
in
the
Department
of
Statistics
and
Actuarial
Science,
has
made
significant
research
contributions
in
several
distinct
areas
including
density
ratio
models
and
empirical
likelihood
methods,
finite
mixture
models,
nonparametric
smoothing
techniques
and
experimental
designs.
With
applications
in
biology,
ecology
and
reliability,
Li’s
work
on
empirical
likelihood
uses
a
unique
combination
of
deep
theory
and
application,
while
his
contributions
to
the
development
of
nonparametric
smoothing
techniques
have
been
applied
to
the
analysis
of
imaging
and
medical
data.
A
member
of
the
Institute
for
Quantum
Computing
since
2015,
Slofstra
was
the
first
to
prove
that
some
of
Tsirelson’s
mathematical
models
yielded
different
sets
of
joint
quantum
probability
densities.
Eventually
he
was
able
to
show
that
all
but
the
pair
of
models
related
to
Connes
Embedding
Problem
yielded
different
sets
of
densities.
This
work
has
led
directly
to
the
definition
of
new
complexity
classes
which
have
led
to
a
group
of
computer
scientists
to
show
that
Connes
Embedding
Problem
has
a
negative
solution.
This
honour
is
conferred
to
early
or
mid-career
faculty
members
who
have
made
outstanding
research
contributions,
was
established
in
2017
to
mark
the
50th
anniversary
of
the
Faculty
of
Mathematics. The
award
is
based
on
the
quality
of
a
candidate’s
research
over
the
past
five
years
or
for
an
influential
paper
published
within
the
past
five
years
as
assessed
through
its
quality
and
impact.
