The Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science is a top-tier academic unit among statistical and actuarial science globally. Our community is engaged in topics such as actuarial science, biostatistics, data science, quantitative finance, statistics, & statistics-computing. Our department is home to 70 full-time faculty researching diverse and exciting areas, over 2000 undergraduate students from around the world, and approximately 200 graduate students in master, doctoral, and professional programs.
News
Statistics and Actuarial Science researchers receive ASA Outstanding Statistical Application Award
Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science researchers Augustine Wigle and Audrey Béliveau have received the 2026 Outstanding Statistical Application Award from the American Statistical Association (ASA) for their paper, Estimating methane emissions from the upstream oil and gas industry using a multi-stage framework, published in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A. Wigle conducted the award-winning research as a Statistics PhD student at Waterloo under the supervision of Dr. Béliveau.
Professor Ruodu Wang receives inaugural Ken Seng Tan Award in Risk Sciences
Professor Ruodu Wang has received the inaugural Ken Seng Tan Award in Risk Sciences for his co-authored paper, "Risk Aversion and Insurance Propensity" (American Economic Review, 2025).
Mary Thompson appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada
Professor Mary Thompson of the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo has been appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. The new appointments were announced on June 26, 2026, by Her Excellency the Right Honourable Louise Arbour, Governor General of Canada.
Professor Thompson’s citation reads:
“Mary Thompson has transformed statistical science through advances in survey methodology and public policy research. This University of Waterloo professor made major contributions to the International Tobacco Control Project, advised national agencies and helped found the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute. She also champions women in the mathematical and statistical sciences.”
Read the full UW Media Relations article: Distinguished Waterloo researcher named to Order of Canada
The announcement and the complete list of the new appointees are available on the Governor General’s website.
Events
Distinguished Lecture by Erhan Bayraktar
David Sprott Distinguished Lecture Series
Erhan Bayraktar
Professor of Mathematics & Susan M. Smith Professor
Director of the Quantitative Finance and Risk Management Masters Program
Department of Mathematics
University of Michigan
Room: TBD
Analytical Approach to Continuous-Time Causal Optimal Transport
We study continuous-time causal optimal transport with a Markovian cost, coupling a finite-state Markov source with a diffusion target. By representing the source through its conditional distribution given observations of the target, we characterize the transport value using a fully nonlinear parabolic master equation on an enlarged state space. We also establish equivalence with two stochastic control formulations on the probability simplex: a controlled Kushner–Stratonovich filtering equation subject to a zero-mean condition, and a state-constrained stochastic control problem. These formulations lead to implementable numerical schemes that approximate the value from above and below.
This is joint work with Julio Backhoff, Ibrahim Ekren, and Antonios Zitridis.