News

From April 28-30, the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science hosted the American Statistical Association (ASA) DataFest: an international data challenge in which teams of undergraduates work to “find and share meaning in a large, rich, and complex data set.” This year, 75 students participated in 20 teams, with 15 teams completing Waterloo’s intense 48-hour challenge. While teams were limited to undergraduates, they had the chance throughout to interact with graduate students, professors, and representatives of Scotiabank, the Waterloo challenge’s major sponsor.

"A key highlight from this competition was getting the opportunity to network with industry professionals, mentors, and professors,” says Inaara Somani. “It was so valuable and insightful to converse with them about their personal knowledge and experience, as well as pitch our ideas…Not only were these individuals great help during the competition, but it was so exciting to learn new things from them!"

Continue reading the full story on the Faculty of Mathematics website.

Diana Skrzydlo is one of four recipients of this year’s Distinguished Teacher Award from the Centre for Teaching Excellence.

Skrzydlo is the Director of the MActSc program, a Continuing Lecturer for the department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, and the Math Teaching Fellow.

Read the full story on the Faculty of Mathematics website.

Mathematician Alfré Rényi famously said that “a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems.” Waterloo biostatistics professor Michael Wallace, however, is a machine for turning coffee into prizes.

In 2020, when Tim Hortons moved their long-standing “Roll Up The Rim To Win” contest completely online due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Wallace made the news for using his statistics knowledge to win 98 per cent of the time. After Tim Hortons tweaked their system in response to his wins, he's back this year with a new method. 

Read the full story on the Waterloo News page. 

On March 1, 2023, faculty and undergraduate students from the Faculty of Mathematics participated in what they hope will be merely the first “Math Teach-Off” event.

The premise of the event was simple: three groups of students would take a quiz on the mathematical concept. Then, each group would be taught about the concept for an hour by one of three instructors: Nathaniel Stevens (assistant professor of Statistics and Actuarial Science and Director of the undergraduate Data Science program); Jordan Hamilton (lecturer in the Math Undergraduate Group); and Blake Madill (lecturer in Pure Mathematics). Finally, the students would take a second quiz on the concept, and each group’s scores would be compared for improvement and overall accuracy.

Continue reading on the Faculty of Math's website.

The Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science congratulates professor Nathaniel Stevens as being named the winner of the 2023 ASQ Feigenbaum Medal. This achievement is awarded for the "outstanding characteristics of leadership, professionalism, and potential in the field of quality and also whose work has been or, will become of distinct benefit to mankind." (ASQ)

The citation reads: "For outstanding contributions to the development and application of statistics in business and industry, to the mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students, and to the service of the broad Quality community."

The medal will be presented in Philadelphia at 2023 ASQ's World Conference on Quality and Improvement. 

The Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science congratulates professor Stefan Steiner as being named the winner of the 2023 ASQ Shewhart Medal. This achievement is awarded for the "outstanding technical contributions and leadership in the field of modern quality control and improvement, especially through the development of theory, principles, techniques, and successful applications in the area of quality." (ASQ)

The citation reads: "For his outstanding leadership in the field of industrial statistics; for his innovation and technical contributions in measurement system analysis, process monitoring, statistical engineering, and variation reduction; and for his dedicated promotion of quality improvement in business, industry, and healthcare."

The medal will be presented in Philadelphia at 2023 ASQ's World Conference on Quality and Improvement. 

More than a hundred students spent the weekend working in teams learning to detect fraud as part of the inaugural Scotiabank Data Science Discovery Days competition.

The event, which took place virtually and in Mathematics 3 from January 20^th to January 22^nd, invited teams of students from across campus to analyze large amounts of data in a project that mimics the real world work they would do in data science careers.

“Scotiabank and the University of Waterloo share a passion for innovation,” says Yannick Lallement, Scotiabank’s Vice President for Corporate Functions Analytics and AI/ML Solutions. “We are pleased to partner with UW on programs that encourage students to engage with applied data and analytics. The enthusiasm, creativity, and technical skills that UW brought to this challenge impressed me a great deal.”

Read the full story on the Math Faculty website.

We are very greatly saddened to announce that our beloved friend and colleague, Professor Ken Seng Tan, passed away on January 1, 2023. 

Ken Seng Tan completed his BMath, MMath, and PhD in Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo. His 1998 doctoral thesis won an award for Oustanding Achievement in Graduate Studies. It also marked the beginning of a lifelong friendship and collaboration with his supervisor, Phelim Boyle. 

Ken Seng joined the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science as faculty in 1998. He held a Canada Research Chair in Quantitative Risk Management from 2005 to 2010, and a University Research Chair from 2010 to 2015. From 2006 to 2015 he was Associate Director of the Institute for Quantitative Finance and Insurance and its successor, WatRISQ. Ken Seng also held a longterm visiting position at the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing, where he was active in supporting Chinese actuarial education and research. 

A research team led by Dr. Kyle Daun, an engineering professor at the University of Waterloo, is working with a sophisticated infrared camera to more accurately measure how well flares convert methane into CO2 as part of the oil and gas industry.

Dr. Aukosh Jagannath, assistant professor of Statistics and Actuarial Science and Applied Mathematics at the University of Waterloo, has won a prestigious Outstanding Paper award at NeurIPS 2022.

NeurIPS, short for Neural Information Processing Systems, is the foremost international conference for research on AI and Machine Learning. The conference receives thousands of submissions a year, and of the approximately 20% that are accepted, only a handful are recognized with the Outstanding Paper awards.

Learn more on the Faculty of Math website.