The aim of the Pierre Robillard Award is to recognize the best PhD thesis defended at a Canadian university in a given year and written in the fields covered by The Canadian Journal of Statistics.

Submitted theses will be evaluated by a committee whose members are appointed by the President of the SSC; their decision will be final. Judging will take into account the originality of  the ideas and techniques, the possible applications and their treatment, and the potential impact on the statistical sciences. In any given year, no more than one winner will be selected; however, the committee may arrive at the conclusion that none of the submitted theses merits the award.

The award consists of a certificate, a monetary prize, and a one-year membership in the SSC. The winner will be invited to give a talk based on the thesis at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Society; assistance with expenses to attend the meeting may be provided. The winner will also be invited to submit a paper to The Canadian Journal of Statistics.

If accepted, the paper will be identified as being based on the thesis which won the 2017 Pierre Robillard Award; the names of the university and the thesis supervisor will be clearly indicated. The thesis supervisor could be co-author of the paper. The Pierre Robillard Award Committee Chair must receive the thesis and a nominating letter from the thesis supervisor by January 31, 2018.

It is imperative that the supervisors address the three criteria below in their letters:

 1.  The originality of the ideas and techniques, as well as a description of the exact contribution of the student when the thesis is based on co-authored articles,

 2. Possible applications and their treatment,

 3. Potential impact on the statistical sciences.

In so doing, the supervisor may include excerpts of letters from external examiners. Complete letters from external examiners or referees will not be accepted. Official confirmation that the thesis has been defended in 2017 must also be provided. Electronic submission is strongly encouraged.

Submission Instructions

For electronic submission, the thesis should be in .pdf format. The thesis and covering letter can be emailed to the committee chair. The subject header of the electronic message should be “SSC Robillard Award Submission - StudentName” and the corresponding files should be named StudentName-thesis.pdf and StudentName-cover-letter.pdf, where “StudentName” is replaced with the name of the student being nominated. Alternately, the covering letter can give a website from which an electronic copy of the thesis can be downloaded.

If the thesis has to be submitted in another electronic format or on paper, the Pierre Robillard Award Committee Chair must be contacted before submission. Entries should include e-mail addresses and phone numbers of both the supervisor and the student.

For a list of previous winners, see: here

Send thesis submissions for the Pierre Robillard Award to:

Gordon Hilton Fick

Chair, Pierre Robillard Award Committee

Department of Community Health Sciences

Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary

Phone: 403-220-6939

ghfick@ucalgary.ca