The winner of the 2004 Robillard Prize was announced at the annual meeting of the SSC at the University of Montréal. The winner was Rachel MacKay-Altman, for the thesis “Hidden Markov Models: Multiple Processes and Model Selection”. The thesis was written at the University of British Columbia under the direction of Professor John Petkau. The prize consists of a certificate, a cheque for $400, a one-year subscription to the Canadian Journal of Statistics, and an invitation to submit a paper based on the thesis to that journal. Dr. Altman delivered an invited lecture based on the thesis at the meeting.

Dr. Altman received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Waterloo in 1996 and her Master’s degree from Cornell University in 1999. She completed her Ph.D. in Statistics at the University of British Columbia in 2003. She is currently an NSERC postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Washington, and recently won an NSERC University Faculty Award. She will take up this award in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at Simon Fraser University on July 1, 2004.

Dr. Altman’s thesis concerns three main issues in hidden Markov model theory. First, she provides a method for consistently estimating the number of hidden states in a stationary hidden Markov model. Second, she proposes a graphical technique for assessing the goodness-of-fit of a stationary hidden Markov model. Finally, she develops a new class of hidden Markov models for multiple processes by incorporating covariates and random effects in the standard hidden Markov model framework. She applies her methods to the analysis of lesion count data on a group of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis patients, where she treats lesion count as a function of the patient’s underlying disease state (relapse or remission).

The prize winner was selected by a committee consisting of Professors David Bellhouse (University of Western Ontario), Grace Chiu (University of Washington), Gerarda Darlington (University of Guelph), Paul Gustafson (University of British Columbia) and Bruno Rémillard (HEC Montréal). This year there were six theses submitted. The committee was impressed by the high quality of the submissions on a wide diversity of topics.

Bruno Rémillard, HEC Montréal, Chair of the Pierre Robillard Committee