The CRM-SSC Prize in Statistics has been awarded this year to Dr. Jiahua Chen, Professor, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo, for his outstanding contributions to the statistical sciences. Within 15 years of his PhD he has made major sustained contributions to three areas: design of experiments, inference for mixtures and survey methodology. Professor Chen blends powerful mathematical ability with keen insight into what is important statistically. His work combines deep theory and practical methodology for dealing with difficult issues.

This announcement was made at University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, site of this year's Annual Meeting. The Statistical Society of Canada, founded in 1977, is dedicated to the promotion of excellence in statistical research and practice. This prestigious award, jointly sponsored by the SSC and the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM), is given each year to a Canadian statistician in recognition of outstanding contributions to the discipline during the recipient’s first 15 years after earning a doctorate.

Jiahua Chen was born in 1960 in Jiangsu province in the People's Republic of China. He started grade one at the early age of 5 but had to discontinue school after grade 8, as was typical for most Chinese children at that time. He then worked on construction sites, wheat mills and a variety of other labour industries. Jiahua states that invariantly and consistently, his arithmetical skill was proven not too useful in these situations and he "was often found inadmissible in term of power comparisons".

The year 1976 was a significant change point to almost all Chinese of this generation. Universities in China soon started to admit students based purely on the grade of a universal entrance exam. Jiahua Chen entered the University of Science and Technology of China in 1978 majoring in mathematics. In 1982, upon learning about graduate school, Jiahua recalls that he strategized on how he could develop a sensible research direction which would permit his further study. He had heard that Professor Xiru Chen at the Institute of Systems Science was full of research ideas which had led to many un-published manuscripts on his desk and thus aimed to secure admittance as his student. Jiahua rationalized that as a student of Professor Chen, a top level Master thesis would be almost surely guaranteed. He was indeed successful in being admitted to graduate school at the Institute of Systems Science at Academia Sinica and his master thesis supervisor was Professor Ping Cheng, who was just as esteemed. Indeed, Jiahua states that he did not have to search for research problems; he “simply worked hard to solve the research problems that rained down from his supervisor”.

At that time, there was a huge tide of students leaving to study overseas. This encouraged Jiahua to pursue Ph.D. study under the supervision of Professor Jeff Wu, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 1986. He followed Professor Jeff Wu to the University of Waterloo as a visiting student where he defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled "On minimum aberration fractional factorial designs''. In Jiahua's words, "Professor Jeff Wu did not rain down research problems, but research ideas and research connections." Even before his graduation, he collaborated with fellow Ph.D. students Jing Qin and Randy Sitter, Professor Wu's former student Jun Shao, and a visiting professor Xiquan Shi. He worked with Professor Jack Kalbfleisch as a post-doctoral fellow after his defence.

Apart from his three main research areas, Jiahua has made notable contributions to many other areas including fish surveys, empirical likelihood, fractal images, genetics and robust estimation. Jiahua applies strong technical and mathematical skill with a remarkable aptitude for handling important and practical problems. He has published extensively in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Biometrika, the Journal of the American Statistical Association, the Annals of Statistics, Biometrics, Statistica Sinica, the Canadian Journal of Statistics and other influential journals.

Jiahua has also made important professional contributions as Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Statistics and of Quality Technology and Quantitative Management, and as a member of the Statistical Sciences Grant Selection Committee of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. He has been dedicated in his service to his department, in particular as Associate Chair for Graduate Studies. He was elected President of the International Chinese Statistical Association in 2005.

Jiahau Chen is the seventh recipient of the CRM-SSC Prize. Previous winners of the award were Christian Genest (Université Laval, 1999), Robert J. Tibshirani (Stanford University, 2000), Colleen D. Cutler (University of Waterloo, 2001), Larry A. Wasserman (Carnegie Mellon University, 2002), Charmaine B. Dean (Simon Fraser University, 2003) and Randy Sitter (Simon Fraser University, 2004).

Charmaine Dean, Simon Fraser University, Chair of the CRM-SSC Prize Committee