About Us

Overview

Highlights

The department offers courses in actuarial science, probability theory, applied statistics, statistical computation and theoretical statistics. The department serves as a focal point for statistical teaching, research and consulting at the university.

Research in the department is highly ranked internationally. The prestigious COPSS Award, the highest international research honour in statistics which began in 1981, has only been awarded three times to resident Canadians; and each of these were at the University of Toronto (Nancy Reid in 1992, Rob Tibshirani in 1996, and Jeffrey Rosenthal in 2007). Don Fraser, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, was the first winner of the Gold Medal of the Statistical Society of Canada for his many outstanding contributions to the field of statistical inference. Radford Neal, jointly appointed with Computer Science, is establishing himself as a world leader in the fields of machine learning and statistical inference. Jeremy Quastel, jointly appointed with Mathematics, is discovering fundamental results about highly complex stochastic systems such as arise in fluid mechanics. Many of our graduate students have won post-doctoral fellowships at prestigious institutions around the world.

Active research programs are being carried out in statistical inference, applied statistics and statistical computing. The department has a group involved with new computational techniques for highly complex problems, and a regular interdepartmental seminar on this topic. The department has an active collaboration with the Department of Mathematics in probability theory, and is also a partner with mathematics in the newly developed program in Mathematical Finance. Faculty and students participate in the research activities of other departments through the Statistical Consulting Service. The department maintains a strong cooperative liaison in teaching and research with the biostatisticians and epidemiologists in the Department of Public Health Sciences.

Department members are also active in the international statistical community. Mike Evans serves on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Statistical Association, and Nancy Reid is a recent president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and a recent editor of the Canadian Journal of Statistics. In 1998 the department was reviewed by an international panel, which concluded:

The faculty of the Department of Statistics at the University of Toronto is very strong, including several members who are acknowledged worldwide leaders in the field. In particular, faculty in the Department have produced major work of fundamental importance in higher-order asymptotic theory and in flexible methods for data analysis, and have made sustained important contributions for many years in multivariate analysis and quality control. Other areas of especially valuable research include Bayesian inference and computation, symbolic computation, probability theory, and actuarial science including financial risk management.

The reputation of the Department is based primarily on its research in statistical theory and computation, but many faculty members are also involved in cross-disciplinary work. Noteworthy among collaborative areas are biostatistics (with two joint appointments) and computer science (one joint appointment), as well as mathematics (one joint appointment).

Teaching is also an important aspect of the department's mission. Actuarial science courses and programs are designed to provide a strong professional background and many students successfully complete several examinations of the Society of Actuaries along with their undergraduate degree. Much statistical work is very interdisciplinary and the department has actively pursued the development of courses geared to the needs of other disciplines. Specific courses serving students in the life sciences, engineering and computer science are offered. Jeffrey Rosenthal was awarded a Faculty teaching award in 1997-98 for his outstanding teaching of probability.

Brief Description

• Actuarial Science,
• Applied Statistics,
• Probability,
• Statistical Computation,
• Statistical Methodology, and
• Theoretical Statistics.

Programs

The Masters program is designed to prepare terminal students for employment as statisticians and to serve as preparation for further graduate work at the Ph.D. level. The Ph.D. program is designed to prepare students for research level careers in Statistics whether in industry, government or academia.

Library Resources