News

UBC Statistics is pleased to announce that PhD student Parham Pishrobat has been awarded the 2025 Rick White Award.

The Rick White Award recognizes undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in a Statistics program who demonstrate excellence in statistical science through collaboration with investigators in other disciplines on a substantial application.

Congratulations to Yuhan Chu on being awarded the 2026 Lorraine Schwartz Prize.

Yuhan has graduated with a B.Sc., Honours in Mathematics (May 2026) and has been awarded the 2026 Lorraine Schwartz Prize in recognition of her exceptional work in mathematics and probability.

The Department of Statistics is pleased to announce that Professor Daniel McDonald has been awarded the Statistical Society of Canada’s (SSC) 2026 Lise Manchester Award which recognizes excellence in state-of-the-art statistical work on problems of public interest, carried out within the last five years.

UBC Statistics is pleased to announce that undergraduate student Wei Lu has been awarded the 2025-2026 Nash Medal. This annual award recognizes an outstanding student in the BSc Statistics program and honours the significant contributions made to the field by Professor Stanley Nash (1915–2001) during his more than forty years at UBC.

The UBC Statistics Department Colloquium Series features talks that are broad, accessible, and engaging - and open to everyone!

The third talk of our series will take place on Monday, June 8th where we will welcome Stephanie Hicks, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University.

Date: Monday, June 8, 2026
Time: 3 - 4 PM
Location: ESB 5104/5106

Title: Statistical methods for single-cell and spatial data science

Former UBC Statistics PhD student Xiaoting Li has been awarded the 2026 Statistical Society of Canada’s Pierre Robillard Award, which recognizes the best PhD thesis in probability or statistics defended at a Canadian university.

Xiaoting’s thesis titled “Multivariate Extreme Value Inference Based on Tail Expansions of Copulas with Applications to Systemic Risk Analysis” was completed under the supervision of UBC Statistics Professor Harry Joe. 

Congratulations to Dr. Geoff Pleiss and his students on being awarded the AISTATS 2026 Best Student Paper Award.  

The paper, “We Still Don’t Understand High-Dimensional Bayesian Optimization,” was authored by Dr. Pleiss, his former research intern Colin Dumont, his current computer science student Donney Fan, and other collaborators.

Congratulations to Rachel Lobay on being awarded a 2025 Graduate Teaching Award!

Rachel is currently a PhD Student in the department of Statistics. In addition to this award, she is the recipient of a Killam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award (2025 - 2026) and a Rick White Award (2024 - 2025).

The Graduate Teaching Award recognizes Rachel's commitment to teaching and the positive impact she has had on students.

Congratulations, Rachel!

Congratulations to PhD student Gian Carlo Diluvi on receiving a 2025 Graduate Teaching Assistant Award.

Gian Carlo is currently pursuing his PhD in Statistics at UBC, having previously completed his MSc in Statistics at UBC in 2021. 

Since joining the department in 2019, he has contributed extensively as a teaching assistant, and from 2021 to 2024 he has also served as a teaching assistant trainer.

This award recognizes Gian Carlo’s outstanding commitment to teaching and his meaningful impact on student learning.

Congratulations, Gian Carlo!

UBC Statistics lecturer Daniel Chen was recently featured on CityNews Vancouver for his creative project mapping Vancouver’s top cherry blossom viewing spots.

Using data from the Vancouver Open Data Portal, Dr. Chen created an interactive map highlighting the best streets in the city to view cherry blossoms.