News

The Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science is happy to be recognized by the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) as a Silver Tier member under the CAS University Recognition Program. This program recognizes academic institutions with a demonstrated commitment to preparing property and casualty actuaries through their educational offerings. The CAS is the world’s only actuarial organization focused exclusively on property and casualty risks, serving over 10,000 members worldwide. The university will receive a set of benefits that accompany this honour, including being featured on the official CAS University Recognition Program list on the CAS website.

Biostatistics professor and serial winner Michael Wallace on maximizing your odds in annual Tim Hortons contest.

Michael, an associate professor in Statistics and Actuarial Science, made headlines in 2020 when he figured out how to win the coffee chain’s newly digital Roll Up game 98 per cent of the time. That winning streak was the result of playing all his accumulated rolls in the middle of the night on the last day of the promotion. Though he only won free coffee and donuts, his high win rate got the attention of Tim Hortons. When they changed their algorithm, he kept playing, developing a new strategy in 2023 that resulted in another winning streak, and another round of media coverage.

Read the full article.

Zhou, Kenneth Q. (BMath, 2013; MMath, 2015; PhD (Actuarial Science), 2019, University of Waterloo) joined the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science on January 2nd, 2025, as an Associate Professor. Prior to this appointment, he was an Assistant Professor in the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at Arizona State University. Kenneth’s research centres on insurance data analytics, actuarial modelling, and risk management, with a particular focus on addressing the technical and economic challenges of life insurance practices. His recent work examines disparities, discrimination, and fairness issues in actuarial mathematics. Kenneth is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA) and an Associate of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (ACIA).

Aukosh Jagannath and Ruodu Wang, two researchers in the Faculty of Mathematics, have received $160,000 in funding from the Ontario Research Fund-Research Infrastructure as part of more than $10 million in funding for Waterloo researchers announced November 22, 2024.

Read the full article on the Faculty of Mathematics website.

Nendel, Max (B.Sc. (major: mathematics, minor: economics), 2012, M.Sc. (major: mathematics, minor: economics), 2014, both at University of Konstanz) joined the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science on December 1st, 2024, as an Associate Professor. Max obtained his PhD in mathematics from University of Konstanz in December 2017. In June 2021, he was appointed as a junior professor of Mathematical Economics and Finance at Bielefeld University's Center for Mathematical Economics. He has been PI in the Collaborative Research Center 1283 and in the Research Training Group 2865. His research activities are primarily concerned with model uncertainty in economics, finance, and actuarial science with a focus on the valuation of financial and insurance products under model uncertainty using non-linear partial differential equations. In addition, he has worked on mathematical topics related to regulatory policymaking, risk measures, and mean field games. In the past, he was guest lecturer at Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla and Konstanz University of Applied Sciences.

The Department of Statisitcs and Actuarial Science would like to congratulate David Awosoga for representing the Faculty of Math as valedictorian for the Class of 2024.

David, who was supervised by Samuel Wong for his MMath Data Science, will continue his education with a PhD in Statistics.

To learn more about David, please continue reading the Bridging knowledge and action to create real-world solutions article.

Maity, Subha (B.Stat, 2016; M.Stat, 2018, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata; Ph.D. (Statistics), 2024, University of Michigan) has joined the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science on October 1st, 2024, as an Assistant Professor. Before that, Subha Maity was a Research Associate at the University of Pennsylvania. His primary research focuses on transfer learning and algorithmic fairness, with a broader focus on problems at the intersection of statistical theory and machine learning. His current research focuses on developing statistical methods for addressing distribution shift using pre-trained models.

Professor Mu Zhu has been named one of the 2024 University Research Chairs.

Mu's initial research interest was dimension reduction. In the early years of his faculty career, he devoted much attention to efficient kernel machines for rare target detection and ensemble methods for variable selection. He also worked on algorithms for making personalized recommendations, and applications of machine learning to healthcare informatics.

While ensemble learning continued to captivate his curiosity, in more recent years Mu has explored a hodgepodge of different topics—such as evaluation metrics, protein structures, transactional networks, and genetic epistasis. He also wrote a textbook for data science students. At present, he is studying various problems about dependence modeling, large covariance matrices, and generative neural networks.

His appointment was effective July 1, 2024.

Originally announced on the Daily Bulletin.

MacDonald, Peter W. (BMath (Statistics & Pure Mathematics), 2017, University of Waterloo; MMath (Statistics), 2018, University of Waterloo; PhD (Statistics), 2023, University of Michigan) has joined the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science on July 1, 2024 as an Assistant Professor. Before returning to Waterloo, Peter was a postdoctoral scholar at McGill University (2023-2024). Peter's research is focused on statistical network analysis. His specific research interests include latent space modeling of multilayer, multiplex, and dynamic network data, as well as inferential methods for comparing samples of networks. He also has interests in post-selective inference and multiple hypothesis testing.