News

The Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics (WCA) is delighted to welcome three exceptional early-career researchers who have chosen to bring prestigious national fellowship awards to the WCA. Drs. David Dayi Li (SAS), Syeda Lammin Ahad, and Nicholas Kern join the WCA after securing highly competitive fellowship support. Drs. Li and Ahad were awarded the new Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA), while Dr. Kern brings a five-year SKA Fellowship to Waterloo.  

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 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).

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.

The Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science is pleased to announce that Ting Zhang is the recipient of the 2026 Samuel Eckler Gold Medal. This prestigious award is presented annually to the graduating student with the highest academic standing in the Actuarial Science major at the University of Waterloo.

Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science researchers Stefan Steiner, Mahsa Panahi  and Jock MacKay, along with collaborator Jeroen de Mast of the University of Amsterdam, have received the 2026 Brumbaugh Award from the American Society for Quality (ASQ) for their paper, A review of leveraged sample selection in variation reduction projects, published in Quality Engineering.

The Statistical Society of Canada (SSC) has awarded the 2026 Canadian Journal of Statistics Award to University of Waterloo researchers Meixi Chen, Reza Ramezan and Martin Lysy for their paper, Fast and scalable inference for spatial extreme value models, published in the Canadian Journal of Statistics in 2025.

Dr. Charmaine Dean has been named the 2026 recipient of the Award for Impact of Applied and Collaborative Work presented by the Statistical Society of Canada (SSC) and Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute (CANSSI) .

Changbao Wu, Professor in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo, is the recipient of the 2026 Gold Medal of the Statistical Society of Canada (SSC), the Society’s highest honour.

Ali Ghodsi, professor in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, has co-authored a new textbook, Elements of Deep Learning.

The book offers a comprehensive introduction to deep learning and neural networks, combining mathematical rigor with hands-on practice. Covering both foundational concepts and emerging topics, the text explores areas including convolutional neural networks, Transformers, large language models, diffusion models, graph neural networks, reinforcement learning, and more.