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Edward Susko
Edward Susko
CRM-SSC Prize in Statistics
2011

Edward Andrew Susko, Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Dalhousie University, is the 2011 winner of the CRM-SSC Prize. Ed has been at the forefront of the development of probabilistic and statistical methods across the field of genetics and computational biology, and is recognized as an international leader. Alongside work published in the mainstream statistics literature, his papers have appeared in some of the most influential journals in the field (PNAS, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Journal of Theoretical Biology). His important contributions, highly cited and recognized as foundational by world-leading experts, include work on statistical phylogenetics, comparative genomics and molecular evolution. His recent results concerning the application of the bootstrap to phylogenetics, where it is perhaps the most widely used computational tool, and the development of theoretical results related to likelihood estimation, have been described as having the potential to completely change the way that molecular phylogenetics is practised and interpreted worldwide.

A native of the Windsor area in Ontario, Ed earned a B.A. in mathematics from University of Windsor in 1990. He then moved to University of British Columbia where he earned a M.Sc. in statistics in 1992. His Ph.D. in statistics was completed in 1996 at University of Waterloo. His Ph.D. thesis won the Pierre Robillard Award of the SSC in 1996. Ed has continually produced research work of the highest quality. In 2001 he received the CJS Best Paper Award from the SSC. More recently, Ed was Fellow of the CIAR Program in Evolutionary Biology (2005-2007).
 
Ed credits much of his success to fruitful and enjoyable collaborations with Andrew Roger and other members of the vibrant evolutionary bioinformatics community at Dalhousie. A caring family and a number of thoughtful SSC members played important roles in formative years. He and his wife, Tammy, enjoy reading, walks, kayaking and an occasional game of golf. They live in Bedford, Nova Scotia with their two children, Mark and Melissa, who enjoy camping, cross-country, swimming, The Amazing Race and Mabinogi, not necessarily in that order.
Citation Accompanying the Award / Criteria / Award Delivery
Edward Susko is the thirteenth recipient of the CRM-SSC Prize. Previous winners of the award were Christian Genest (Laval), Robert J. Tibshirani (Stanford), Colleen D. Cutler (Waterloo), Larry A. Wasserman (Carnegie-Mellon), Charmaine B. Dean (Simon Fraser), Randy R. Sitter (Simon Fraser), Jiahua Chen (Waterloo), Jeffrey S. Rosenthal (Toronto), Richard J. Cook (Waterloo), Paul Gustafson (UBC), Hugh A. Chipman (Acadia), and Grace Y. Yi (Waterloo).