The Constance van Eeden Fund
About the Fund
The Constance van Eeden Fund for Honouring Distinguished Achievement in Statistics was established in 1998, through the generosity of Dr. van Eeden. The Fund has been established to promote learning in statistical science, to recognize distinguished statistical scholars at all levels and to celebrate extraordinary achievement in the discipline. It is to be used in ways consistent with the Strategic Plan to help the Department of Statistics achieve the shared vision of its staff, students and faculty.
The fund is intended to promote a variety of activities, specifically the Statistician in Residence program, a lecture program, a summer school program, admissions awards, and graduate student-invited speakers.
- The Statistician in Residence program: This program will bring visitors to the Department for a week or more. The visitor would have demonstrated exceptional accomplishment or potential for such accomplishment by the academic and professional criteria by which success is judged in the discipline of statistics.
- A lecture program: A visitor of great international distinction would visit the Department of Statistics for a period of about one week.
- A West Coast Summer School in Statistics program: The school could be designed for graduate students, undergraduate students or secondary school students.
- Admissions Awards: These awards would recognize outstanding achievement while enabling the Department to be more competitive in the international competition for prospective graduate students and Postdoctoral Fellows.
- Graduate Student invited speaker: Each year, Statistics graduate students choose a prominent statistician to give a seminar in the department. The students invite the visitor and organize the visit.
About Dr. van Eeden
Dr. van Eeden has made and continues to make important contributions in a wide range of areas, including estimation in restricted parameter spaces, decision theory, nonparametrics, and selection procedures. She is a Fellow in the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Amercian Statistical Association, and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. She contributed to the development of statistics in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Montreal. That department has honoured her by establishing the Prix Constance van Eeden, given annually to the best graduating BSc student in statistics or actuarial science. Dr. van Eeden has supervised more than a dozen PhD students and eighteen MSc students. The UBC Statistics Department is fortunate to have Dr. van Eeden spend each fall in the Department. And the Department is honoured that Dr. van Eeden has entrusted it with administration of the Fund.
Supported Activities
In the spring of 2011, the Statistics graduate students hosted the visit of Professor Jianqing Fan of Princeton University. Professor Fan gave a seminar entitled "Refitted Cross-validation in Ultrahigh Dimensional Regression" on March 15 2011.In the fall of 2010, Professor Xiao-Li Meng of Harvard University gave three lectures.
- Trivial Mathematics but Deep Statistics: Simpson's Paradox and Its Impact on Your Life Abstract (1 October 2010)
- The Making of Sexy Statistics and Statisticians: Some Recent Harvard Experiments Abstract (4 October 2010)
- 30 Years of Bootstrap and Multiple Imputation: Joint Replications versus Conditional Replications Abstract (5 October 2010)
In the summer of 2010, the Statistics graduate students hosted the visit of Professor Hongkai Ji of Johns Hopkins University. Professor Ji gave a seminar entitled "Joint Analysis of Multiple Genome-wide Chromatin Immunoprecipitation Experiments" Abstract on June 3, 2010.
In the fall of 2009, Professor Graciela Boente of the University of Buenos Aires, Department of Mathematics and "Instituto de Calculo" gave a lecture on:
- Robust estimators in functional principal components Abstract
- Creating structured and flexible models: some open problems Abstract (June 8 2009)
- Culture wars, voting and polarization: divisions and unities in modern American politics Abstract (June 8, 2009)
In the spring of 2007, Professor Michael Woodroofe, L.J. Savage Professor of Statistics at the University of Michigan gave two lectures at UBC on:
- Shape Restricted Estimation in the Search for Dark Matter Abstract
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A Kiefer Wolfowitz Comparison Theorem for Wicksell’s Problem Abstract
In the fall of 2006, Professor Jean Opsomer of Iowa State University gave two lectures, one at UBC and one jointly with Simon Fraser University. The first lecture was an introductuction to estimation for natural resource surveys, the second lecture, a specialized lecture on variance estimation for systematic samples using nonparametric methods. Jean Opsomer is well known for his work on additive models and on applications to environmental problems, including his recent work in natural resource surveys.
In the fall of 2004, Professor Jim Ramsay of McGill University and Adjunct Professor in the UBC Department of Statistics presented a two day workshop on Functional Data Analysis. The workshop was also supported by the Statistics Department of Simon Fraser University.
In October 2003, Professor Mark van der Laan of University of California, Berkeley gave a lecture on:
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Cross-Validated Deletion/Substitution/Addition Algorithms in Regression (Abstract)
In September 2003, Professor Chris Chatfield of the University of Bath, UK gave a lecture on:
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Time-Series Forecasting in the New Millennium (Abstract)
In Spring 2002, the Department welcomed Professors Michael Newton and Christina Kendziorski from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, whose visits were supported by the fund's Lecture Program. Besides interacting with faculty members and graduate students in the department, Professors Newton and Kendziorski gave lectures:
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Nonparametric Bayes approaches to infer mixing distributions
Michael Newton in Statistics Workshop
Abstract (26 March 2002) -
Mapping Physiological Mechanism to the Genome: A Mathematical Modeling Approach
Christina Kendziorski in BRG Seminar
Abstract (27 March 2002) -
On Modeling Genomic Aberrations in Cancer Cells
Michael Newton in BRG Seminar
Abstract (28 March 2002)
During the fall of 1999, the Department welcomed Professor William Strawderman, whose visit was supported by the fund's Statistician in Residence program. Professor Strawderman gave a series of seminars and lectures. See the seminar series for further information.
