The Distinguished Service Award is awarded to a person who has made substantial contributions to the running or welfare of SSC, over a period of several years. A recipient of the Distinguished Service Award must be a member of the SSC.
Hugh Chipman is the recipient of the 2024 Distinguished Service Award from the Statistical Society of Canada (SSC). This award honours an individual who has played an important and substantial role in fostering the growth and success of the Canadian Statistical Sciences community through leadership in the SSC.
Hugh grew up in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, where he lives now. He attended Acadia University, where he received his B.Sc. in 1989 (he managed to pass the one course he took from his father, Fred). Moving to Waterloo, he studied at the University of Waterloo, receiving an M.Math in 1990 under the supervision of Wayne Oldford and a Ph.D. in 1994, under the supervision of Jeff Wu and Mike Hamada. He held faculty positions at the University of Chicago and the University of Waterloo before returning to Acadia University in 2004 where he held a Tier II Canada Research Chair. He’s held a P.Stat. since 2007.
Since his first SSC meeting in 1993 (at Acadia), Hugh has enjoyed the sense of community that the SSC provides. He’s had the pleasure of helping the SSC in a variety of roles: Electronic Services Manager (2009 - 2011), local arrangements chair for the 2011 Annual Meeting, President of the Business and Industrial Statistics Section (2015-16), President (2017-2018) and Acting Electronic Services Manager (November 2017 - April 2019). He served as the Atlantic representative on the SSC Board from 2007 - 2011 and on many SSC committees. He’s served the broader statistical sciences community in a variety of ways, including as Editor of Technometrics, chair of the NSERC grant selection committee in statistics and CANSSI Associate Director.
During his term as Electronic Services Manager, the SSC made several big moves online, including a new website, online membership renewal and an online meeting system for registration and abstract submission.
While Hugh was SSC President, the SSC made improvements to financial processes, including accountability, oversight and transparency. With the education of society and section leadership and financial officers, the SSC improved its resistance to online threats.
At about the same time, as Acting Electronic Services Manager, Hugh oversaw the transition to Freeform Solutions for support and development of our electronic services. This included updates to the online version of Liaison, the annual meeting system and membership renewals plus a new elections system.
These accomplishments were all collaborations with dedicated members of the executive and many enthusiastic SSC members and staff. Work on financial processes was with Executive Secretary Llwellyn Armstrong, Executive Director Shirley Mills and Treasurer Edward Chen. Work on electronic services was with Jason Loeppky. Hugh also benefited from the expertise of Alan Kelm, CMS Manager of Electronic Services and the SSC’s Executive Assistant Miaclaire Woodland.
“To Hugh Chipman, for significant contributions and services to the SSC in various roles including the Presidential offices of SSC and numerous SSC committees; for exceptional service as SSC Electronic Services Manager, especially during periods of crisis; for outreach efforts on behalf of the statistical sciences; and for dedicated services for the profession over three decades.”