Research Day 2021 was filled with great talks, important research insights and advice, and socializing over virtual lunch.

The 11th annual Statistical Sciences Graduate Student Research Day took place on April 23, 2021. The event turned out to be a fun day full of research insights and advice for (and by) our graduate students and drew a crowd of students and faculty from across universities.

This year’s event was dedicated to the late Don Fraser who played a leading role in establishing the Department of Statistics at the University of Toronto. The purpose of Research Day is to expose graduate students to current methods, leading experts, and important topical themes in the field of statistics. Our 2021 theme was applications of data science in life sciences, genetics, and genomics. Because of the lockdown, Research Day was held online for the first time.

The impressive lineup of speakers included Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health’s Tianxi Cai, University of Michigan’s Xiang Zhou, 2020 CRM-SSC Prize in Statistics award winner Erica Moodie, and University of York’s Martin Bland. The Bland-Altman plot is partially named after him.

Research amongst the graduate students is thriving, as the event showcased. Eight students presented on a wide variety of topics, ranging from statistical genetics to stochastic portfolio theory. For some of our graduate students’ work in the form of published papers, visit our collection of student research highlights.

Many thanks to the Fields Institute for their outstanding support. Visit the Fields Institute for more information about the event.

Written by Sabrina Sixta