We are located on the Vancouver campus of the University of British Columbia and are an academic unit within the Faculty of Science with activities in research, education, and consulting.
Since the Department's founding in 1983, we have had a consistent vision of the discipline of Statistics and of our role in shaping it through our activities in education, in methodological and applied research, and in support of subject area research, a vision that is consistent with the newly emerged field of Data Science. See more about the Department's Data Science activities. Throughout its history, the Department has emphasized that the discipline of Statistics derives its importance from applications, but also requires a strong theoretical foundation. The Department has always valued data-driven research, consulting, and collaboration, and has long held communication and computing skills as crucial for success. These values are apparent not only in individual faculty members’ research programs but also in our undergraduate and graduate curriculums and through our consulting and research unit, the Applied Statistics and Data Science Group.
The Department presently has 17 regular faculty members, plus 4 Professors Emeriti and a number of Associate Members, Adjunct Professors, and Honorary Research Associates and Honorary Professors. We have about 500 undergraduates in our statistics programs—many of whom combine Statistics studies with another area such as Computer Science or Economics. We have 45 graduate students, roughly evenly split between MSc and PhD, with MSc students choosing between a Statistics and a Biostatistics stream. We also offer a Master of Data Science in partnership with the Department of Computer Science.
Many of our activities are funded through the generosity of donors, including Constance van Eeden, those who support the Statistics Fund for Excellence, and those who have established student awards.
For a trip down memory lane—or to see what your professors looked like 20 to 30 years ago—check these out:
