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This week, the University of Waterloo campus will host the second-ever CANSSI-NISS Health Data Science Workshop, taking place from August 3rd to 4th. This workshop is jointly sponsored by the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute (CANSSI) and the United States' National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS).

When Sacha Tihanyi was halfway through an undergraduate economics degree, he recognized a budding passion for mathematics. “I had many broad interests in school, but something flipped for me during that program,” he remembered. “I chose Waterloo because it had a reputation as the best mathematics school in Canada.”

As a master’s student, Chris Salahub completed a project focused on reducing the risk for cyclists on the busy streets of Zurich. His passion for leveraging data to solve real-world problems is what drew him back to the Faculty of Mathematics, where he previously earned a bachelor’s degree, to pursue a PhD in statistics.

“I like to think I’m a curious person,” said Jennifer Haid (BMath’04), a native of the Waterloo Region. When she learned about Waterloo’s Math Day from her high school math teacher, she decided to attend in hopes of learning about a career path that would leverage her aptitude for mathematics in the business world. “I remember watching a professor deliver a presentation about actuarial science and thinking two things: It was challenging, and I could do it,” she shared. 

Katia Naccarato has never shied away from exploring an unfamiliar path, hitting a dead end, and trying a different one. Before she enrolled in the Master of Actuarial Science (MActSc) program at the Faculty of Mathematics, she was laser-focused on pursuing a career in medicine. Her current trajectory looks nothing like she expected, but she’s confident she’s heading in the right direction.

Samantha Wallis’s enthusiasm for statistics is matched only by her longtime passion for visual arts. As she considers her path forward after graduating with a degree in mathematics, Wallis thinks about how to meld her two interests into a single career. While she hasn’t landed on a definitive answer, she has a strong hunch where she will go next.

Internet users from Canadian rural and remote communities suffer from frequent Internet interruptions, which generally result from various network issues. The lack of human resources, expertise and support make these issues difficult to identifyand fix. Remote areas lack responsive and cost-effective operations or maintenance efforts.

When Grace Tompkins attended Waterloo’s Grad Visit Day in 2019, she was presented with an opportunity to combine her interests in public health with her research in mathematics. The Master of Mathematics in Biostatistics program was the perfect blend of mathematical theory and epidemiology that she was looking for.

Longevity risk is an essential concept for life insurance companies and reinsurance companies. A deep understanding of the risk is crucial, as an underestimation of longevity can seriously affect the financial healthiness of pension plans and annuity funds.