Honorary Member 2005
Professor Zidek's fundamental research contributions range from theoretical foundations for decision making to environmental modeling of spatial air pollution data. For his work, he has been named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and was awarded the SSC Gold Medal in 2000, the Ninth Eugene Lukacs Symposium Distinguished Service Award, the Distinguished Achievement Medal of the Environmental Statistics Section of the ASA, and the Izaak Walton Killam Research Prize. He has served the statistical community in many ways, including as NSERC Group Chair of the Mathematical Sciences and President of the Statistical Society of Canada. Professor Zidek was also the first Head of UBC's Department of Statistics.
The citation for the award reads:
Professor James Zidek is awarded an Honorary Membership in the SSC for exceptional leadership in establishing and developing the UBC Department of Statistics and in multiple roles with the SSC and NSERC, inspiring teaching and exemplary supervision of students, outstanding mentorship of colleagues, dedicated editorial service, and highly original and influential research contributions in the statistical sciences.