Board of Directors

The PIMS Board of Directors is responsible for oversight of all aspects of PIMS. 

 

 

Current Board Members

Engin Özberk Chair, PIMS Board of Directors

enginozberk

Mr. Özberk has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) since 2009. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of “Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation” since 2011, and member of the Advisory Committee for the University of Calgary, Cumming School of Medicine, the BRAIN CREATE Research Program for New Neurotechnology.

Mr. Özberk as a Senior Management Consultant, served as special advisor to Mitacs CEO (2016-2019) and VP Research University of Saskatchewan (2016-2019). He served as the Executive Director and Senior Technical Advisor of IMII (2013-2015). He retired from Cameco in March 2013. He was the VP, Cameco Technology and Innovation of Cameco Corporation. He joined Cameco in February 1997. He previously worked for Sherritt International Corporation, Alberta; for The SNC Group, Montreal; for Noranda Technology Centre, Pointe-Claire; and for Etibank, Turkey. He has more than 45 years of research and development and project management experience in light metals, base metals and nuclear industries. He has led or participated in numerous major metallurgical and chemical engineering projects in practically every continent.

Mr. Ozberk obtained his MEng., Metallurgical Engineering (1979) and PGD in Management (1978), both from McGill University, Montreal, and his BSc from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey (1972). He has authored or coauthored more than 40 papers and is a Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (CIM) Fellow.

Mr. Özberk is a recipient of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (CIM) Distinguished Lecturer Award (2009), and the Silver Medal (1997), The Airey Award (Xstrata) (2011), and the Alcan Award (2006) from the Metallurgical Society of CIM. He also received Harold A. Smith Outstanding Contribution Award (2018) and the Communication and Education Award (2007) from the Canadian Nuclear Society and the Extractive Metallurgy Science Award (1988) from the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society of AIME of USA.

Mr. Özberk served as the president and chairman of the board of directors of the Canada Mining Innovation Council 2008-2012, he is one of the 3 founding members. He was the co-chair of the steering committee for “International Minerals Innovation Institute” for Saskatchewan and one of its three founding members. Mr. Özberk served as a member of NSERC, Advisory Committee on University-Industry Grants (ACUIG), 2011-2014; Toxicology Centre Advisory Board of University of Saskatchewan, 2008-2013; Business Development Advisory Committee (BDAC) for the Canadian Light Source, 2008-2013; Mining Association of Canada-Science Committee, 2008-2012; the co-chair of the Technical Advisory Committee of the UOIT Cameco Chair for Nuclear Fuel, 2007-12; University Network of Excellence in Nuclear Engineering (UNENE) executive committee, 2006-12; and as the Co-chair of CANMET-MMSL Green Mining Initiative Board of Directors, 2009-2013.

He has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2009.

 

 

Jayadev Athreya PIMS Co-Director International and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Washington

Jayadev Athreya

Jayadev Athreya is a Professor of Mathematics and the Comparative History of Ideas at the University of Washington, and the founder of the Washington Experimental Mathematics Lab. He is originally from Ames, Iowa where he graduated from Iowa State University. Athreya completed his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, took on postdoctoral fellowships at Yale and Princeton, and was previously at the University of Illinois before moving to the University of Washington. He has held visiting positions in the UK, France, and India. Much of his research is in geometry, dynamical systems, and the creative processes of mathematics.

Professor Athreya has co-organized various events sponsored by PIMS including the Pacific Northwest Dynamics workshop. Professor Athreya has also served on the Director’s advisory council, and as Special Advisor to the Director. He is currently the Chair of the 2022 Pacific Rim Mathematical Association (PRIMA) Scientific Committee.

He has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2021.

 

 

Kristine Bauer PIMS Co-Director Industry and Associate Professor of Mathematics, University of Calgary

Kristine Bauer

 

Dr. Kristine Bauer is an Associate Professor at the University of Calgary, and an expert in algebraic topology. She earned her PhD from the University of Illinois (Urbana) in 2001, and after postdoctoral positions at Johns Hopkins University and Western University, she joined the faculty in Calgary. She is one of the founding members of the Women in Topology (WIT) network, a grass-roots organization aimed at the retention of women in the field of homotopy theory. Along with the other AWM research networks, WIT has had tremendous success in increasing representation of women in the field. In 2019, Dr. Bauer became a fellow in the prestigious Executive Leadership in Academic Technology, Engineering and Science (ELATES) program at Drexel University. In 2020, together with Dr. James Colliander, she founded the PIMS Math to Power Industry Program, a training program for graduate students in the mathematical sciences who wish to transition from academic programs into meaningful industrial jobs. Dr. Bauer was the Calgary Site Director for PIMS during 2019 - 2022. She has been the PIMS Co-Director, Industry since July 1, 2022.

She has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2022.

 

 

Landon Downes President of 1Qbit and Managing Partner of Cambium Capital

Landon Downes

 

Landon Downs is co-founder and President of 1QBit and Managing Partner of Cambium Capital an early stage venture capital fund focused on advanced computation. Landon’s accomplishments span a diverse range of leadership roles, from venture investing to co-founding startups, negotiating mergers and acquisitions to advising on some of the largest public-private-partnership infrastructure transactions in Canada. Throughout his career he has advised on the deployment of over $6Bn of capital.

Landon received a Bachelor of Commerce with distinction from the University of Victoria, is a CFA Charterholder, and completed Singularity University’s Executive Program. He was a driving force behind the formation of the UN’s AI and Robotics Centre and is a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer. He currently serves as President and Director of Acumen Canada (the Canadian arm of Acumen Fund) and is a board member of the Quantum Algorithm Institute.

He has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2020.

 

 

Hannes Edinger Director of Big River Analytics Ltd.

Hannes Edinger

 

Hannes Edinger is an award-winning economist, a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta, and the director of Big River Analytics Ltd., based in Terrace, British Columbia. Hannes founded Big River Analytics Ltd. in 2011 with the objective of providing statistical and analytical capacity to benefit Indigenous communities and governments across Canada. Hannes and his team have since served all levels of government in Canada and they continue to provide analytical capacity to local, regional, provincial, and federal Indigenous organizations in Canada. In addition to his work at Big River, he serves as a member of the National Stakeholder Advisory Panel for the Labour Market Information Council. As for a unique/interesting fact - I'm a passionate angler and I spend my summers chasing chinook salmon in Haida Gwaii.

He has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2020.

 

 

Douglas Farenick Dean of the Faculty of Science and Professor of Mathematics, University of Regina

Douglas Farenick

Douglas Farenick is presently Professor of Mathematics and Acting Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Regina. He received his PhD from the University of Toronto and held a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Université de Montréal before going to the University of Regina in 1992. Dr. Farenick’s research in operator algebra theory has been supported by NSERC since 1993, and to date he has authored or co-authored 48 refereed journal articles and two books. Dr. Farenick has also supervised or co-supervised six PhD candidates to completion and has supervised four postdoctoral fellows from Canada and abroad. He currently supervises two PhD candidates and one FRQNT (Québec) postdoctoral fellow.

He has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2016.

 

 

William Ghali Vice-President (Research), University of Calgary

William Ghali

Dr. William Ghali was appointed Vice-President (Research) effective March 1, 2020.

Dr. Ghali is Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary. Dr. Ghali is also a physician, specializing in General Internal Medicine (MD (1990) - University of Calgary, FRCP(C) (1994)) - Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario), and completed methodological training in health services research and epidemiology at the Boston University School of Public Health (MPH, 1995). Dr. Ghali was formally the scientific director of the O’Brien Institute for Public Health at the University of Calgary.

Dr. Ghali has held millions of dollars of peer-reviewed research funding from a number of agencies through his research program, focused on evaluating and improving health system performance for better patient outcomes and improved system efficiency. He has held a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Health Services Research for two five-year periods and has published more than 420 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

He is a Fellow of both the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada. He was featured by the Globe and Mail in April 2012 as the Canadian public health researcher with the highest publication H-index, and has also been named in the Thomson-Reuters listing of the top 1% of most highly cited researchers by discipline. He is co-director of the University of Calgary World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre in Disease Classifications and Health Information.

He has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2020.

 

 

Rodger Guinn Chair of the External Advisory Committee for the University of Manitoba`s Faculty of Science "Data Science Nexus" initiative

Rodger Guinn

Rodger Guinn currently serves as the Chair of the External Advisory Committee for the University of Manitoba`s Faculty of Science "Data Science Nexus" initiative. This committee brings industry and public sector perspectives forward to the Faculty as it launches a new multi-disciplinary Data Science undergraduate and graduate program. Related activities seek to strengthen partnerships with Data Science faculty researchers with Manitoba`s business and government organizations.

Prior to his retirement in 2018, Rodger had a public sector executive career spanning over 30 years across Federal, Provincial, Municipal governments and Healthcare. His working career focused on the introduction and implementation of enterprise systems (SAP and PeopleSoft) and innovations including the public sector possibilities associated with Data Analytics.

In addition to his current Committee / Board role he has previously served as National Board President for the Financial Management Institute of Canada (FMI) and Manitoba provincial Chapter.

He has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2020.

 

 

Fraser Hof Associate Vice President Research and Professor of Chemistry, University of Victoria

Fraser Hof

Fraser grew up in Medicine Hat, Alberta, and was educated at the University of Alberta, The Scripps Research Institute (California), and at ETH Zurich (Switzerland). He joined UVic as a chemistry professor in 2005. Fraser’s scholarly work has explored the interface of the physical sciences, life sciences, and health research, and he has collaborated extensively with academic and private sector partners from many disciplines. Major recognitions of his research impact include a CIHR New Investigator Award, an NSERC Canada Research Chair, and the Canadian Society for Chemistry's award for excellence in medicinal chemistry. He was the Director of UVic’s interdisciplinary Centre for Advanced Materials and Related Technology from 2020–2022, and was named Associate Vice President of Research at UVic in 2022. Fraser is active in campus-wide initiatives that aim to grow UVic’s success in research, partnerships, and innovation. Outside of work, Fraser takes his greatest pleasures from family, strong coffee, the great outdoors, and soccer.

Dr. Hof has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2022.

 

 

Habiba Kadiri Associate Professor, Department of Math and CS, University of Lethbridge

Habiba Kadiri

Dr. Kadiri received a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in mathematics from the Université de Bordeaux I and then a Ph.D. in Mathematics (2002) from Université de Lille I in France. She went onto a postdoctoral position at the Université de Montréal before starting her current position at the Université of Lethbridge in 2007. She was Associate Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science (2018-2020). Her research lies in analytic number theory: she investigates questions related to the Riemann Hypothesis by using a combination of analytical and computational methods (location and count of zeros of various L-functions) and their applications towards long-standing conjectures about prime numbers. Her NSERC grants have supported the training of numerous students and postdoctoral fellows. Her involvement with PIMS started before Lethbridge’s full affiliation with it, with the 2012 Canadian Number Theory Association Meeting. Since then, she has been initiating and running a number of PIMS activities, such as the Lethbridge Distinguished Speaker Series, the Alberta Number Theory Days events at BIRS, the 2021 Summer School on Inclusive Paths Toward Number Theory, or more recently the 2023 Woman in Math Day. Currently, she is co-leading the activities, postdocs, and projects of the PIMS Collaborative Research Group "L-functions in Analytic Number Theory" (2022-2025). She has also been a strong advocate for women in mathematics and science, and chaired the Canadian Mathematical Society EDI Committee from 2021‐2022.

Dr. Kadiri has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2023.

 

 

Stephen Kirkland Associate Dean (Natural Sciences and Engineering). Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Manitoba

Steve Kirkland pic

Dr. Kirkland received a B.Sc. in mathematics from the University of British Columbia in 1984, then studied at the University of Toronto, receiving a M.Sc (1985) and a Ph.D. (1989), both in mathematics. After holding postdoctoral positions at Queen’s University (1989-1991) and the University of Minnesota (1991-1992), Dr. Kirkland became a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Regina, where he worked from 1992 to 2009. He relocated to Ireland, and for the period 2009-2013, Dr. Kirkland was a Stokes Professor in the Hamilton Institute at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. Dr. Kirkland returned to Canada in 2013, taking up his current position as Professor and Head of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Manitoba.

Dr. Kirkland’s research is in matrix theory and graph theory, with particular interest in the theory and applications of nonnegative matrices, spectral graph theory, and combinatorial matrix theory. He has published upwards of 140 refereed journal publications, conference proceedings, and book chapters, as well as one book and three edited volumes. Since 2006 he has been an Editor in Chief of the journal Linear and Multilinear Algebra, and he serves on two other editorial boards. He was president of the International Linear Algebra Society for the period 2008-2014, and in 2008 he received the University of Regina Alumni Association Award for Excellence in Research.

Dr. Kirkland has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2015.

 

 

Kirill Kopotun Professor, Department of Mathematics, University of Manitoba

Kirill Kopotun

Kirill Kopotun is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Manitoba. After completing his undergraduate studies (interrupted by a 2-year compulsory military service in the Soviet Army) at Kyiv State University (currently Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv) in Ukraine in 1991, he continued his education in Canada and received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Alberta in 1996. After spending 4 years at Vanderbilt University, he joined the University of Manitoba in 2000 where he has been ever since. Dr. Kopotun’s research is mostly in approximation theory, with particular interest in constrained approximation and related areas. He serves on the editorial boards of several journals including Journal of Approximation Theory.

Dr. Kopotun was the inaugural PIMS Site Director at the University of Manitoba (2015-2021) and has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2021.

 

 

Matthew Letts Dean, Faculty of Arts and Science, University of Lethbridge

Matthew Letts

Prof. Matthew G. Letts is the Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Lethbridge and a member of the Department of Geography and Environment. Matt has previously served as Associate Dean (2012-2019), as interim Associate Vice-President Research (2014-15) and as Academic Program Director of the Destination Project, the first stage of which was the development of the new Science Commons at the University of Lethbridge. Letts has also been a strong advocate for Engineering, the Agility program in innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as other experiential learning initiatives at the UofL. Matt has served on the PIMS Board of Directors since 2019.

Letts’ academic background includes a B.Sc. and B.A. from Queen’s University, an M.Sc. from McGill University and a Ph.D. in Geography, from King’s College London. His ecological research program at the University of Lethbridge has been supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and Alberta Innovates. His work focused on plant physiological acclimation to environmental stress in a variety of ecosystems, from coulee grasslands to the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, northern peatlands, tropical cloud forests of Colombia and Mediterranean environments of southern France.

He has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2019.

 

 

Gail Murphy Vice-President Research (pro-tem), University of British Columbia

johnhepburn

Gail C. Murphy is a Professor of Computer Science and Associate Vice-President Research and International pro tem at the University of British Columbia. She is also co-founder and Chief Scientist at Tasktop Technologies Inc. Her research interests are in improving the productivity of software developers and knowledge workers by giving them tools to identify, manage and coordinate the information that really matters for their work. Dr. Murphy is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an ACM Distinguished Scientist. With her students, she has received best and test of time awards from ICSE, ACM SIGSOFT and Modularity. She received a B.Sc. (Honours) degree in Computing Science from the University of Alberta and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Washington.

She has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2016.

 

 

Bram Noble Professor and Vice-Dean Research, Scholarly and Artistic Work, College of Arts & Science, University of Saskatchewan

johnhepburn

As Vice-Dean Research, Scholarly and Artistic Work (RSAW) in the College of Arts and Science, Bram is the senior leader in the College for all RSAW-related matters and provides vision and leadership for the development and implementation of a comprehensive, integrated RSAW plan for the College on behalf of faculty, students, and other stakeholders.

Bram’s research is in the field of environmental assessment, addressing issues and applications ranging from cumulative effects assessment and land use to resource policy and planning for mineral and energy development projects. He is the co-director of the Community Appropriate Sustainable Energy Security (CASES) partnership, funded by a SSHRC Partnership Grant and project partners. CASES is an international research and knowledge mobilization initiative involving 15 northern and Indigenous communities and public and private sector project partners from Canada, Alaska, Sweden, and Norway. The overarching goal of this work is to co-create and broker the knowledge, understanding, and capacity to design, implement and manage renewable energy systems that support and enhance social and economic values in northern and Indigenous communities

Bram currently serves as Editor-in-Chief for Environmental Management and on the editorial boards of Environmental Impact Assessment Review and Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal.

He has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2023.

 

 

Dugan O'Neil Vice-President Research and Professor of Physics, Simon Fraser University

DuganONeil

As the Associate Vice-President, Research, Dugan O’Neil works closely with the Vice-President, Research and International, and shares responsibility for academic leadership in, and administration of, research and other scholarly activities. Together, they work to raise Simon Fraser University's research profile to an internationally competitive level. Activities include the encouragement, facilitation and administration of research across faculties and other offices at SFU.

He is cited for integrating sophisticated digital infrastructure into a diverse scientific community that spans engineering, natural sciences, health, social sciences and humanities.

He has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2018.

 

 

Mari Ostendorf Vice Provost Research and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Washington

Mari Ostendorf

Mari Ostendorf assumed the role of Vice Provost for Research at the University of Washington on September 1, 2021. She is an Endowed Professor of System Design Methodologies in the Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) Department and has been serving as Associate Vice Provost for Research in the Office of Research since 2017. Professor Ostendorf joined the University of Washington in 1999, and she has previously served as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Engineering and Associate Chair for Research in the ECE Department. She also holds adjunct professor appointments in Computer Science and Engineering, and in Linguistics. Prior to coming to UW, she was a Professor in the ECE Department at Boston University.

A prominent researcher in the areas of speech and language technology, Dr. Ostendorf’s current research focuses on conversational artificial intelligence, exploring dynamic and context-aware models for understanding and generating speech and text, particularly in multi-party contexts. This work contributes to a variety of applications, from education to clinical and scientific information extraction, and has been used in automatic analysis of human-human call center conversations, automatic extraction of information from clinical notes, and natural language processing to support efforts to reduce bias in development of STEM assessments. For her contributions in spoken language processing, she was awarded the 2018 IEEE James L. Flanagan Speech and Audio Processing Award. Elected to the National Academy of Engineering earlier this year, she is also a fellow of the IEEE, the International Speech and Communication Association and the Association for Computational Linguistics, a member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, a corresponding fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a former Australian-American Fulbright Scholar.

She has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2022.

 

 

Malabika Pramanik Director, Banff International Research Station and Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, University of British Columbia

Malabika Pramanik

Malabika Pramanik received her Masters degrees in Statistics from the Indian Statistical Institute, and her PhD in Mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley in 2001. Before joining UBC in 2006, Dr. Pramanik held positions at the University of Wisconsin, University of Rochester and California Institute of Technology. A mathematical analyst, her research interests cover Euclidean harmonic analysis, geometric measure theory, partial differential equations and several complex variables. She is the recipient of two UBC Killam awards one for research and another for teaching, the Ruth E. Michler Memorial Prize, the Canadian Mathematical Society Krieger-Nelson Prize, a 2018 Wall scholarship, and a 2019 Simons fellowship. Dr. Pramanik is actively involved in initiatives that promote diversity and inclusivity in STEM fields, especially through her role as Vice-President for the Pacific region of the CMS and as a co-organizer of programs such as the PIMS Diversity in Mathematics Summer School.

Dr. Pramanik has has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2024.

 

 

Vakhtang Putkaradze Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Alberta

Vakhtang Putkaradze

Vakhtang Putkaradze holds a PhD in theoretical physics (1997) from the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has held the position of L.E. Dickson Instructor at the University of Chicago, faculty positions at the New Mexico and Colorado State Universities, and most recently the title of Centennial Professor of Mathematics at the University of Alberta. In addition, he was the Site Director for Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) at the UofA. He also held visiting professorship positions at the Ibaraki and Kyoto Universities (Japan), TU Dublin (Ireland), and University of Aix-Marseille (France). Vakhtang has received numerous prizes at the university, national, and international level, including the CAIMS-Fields Prize for Industrial Mathematics, University of Alberta Commercialization Award, Japanese Society for Promotion of Sciences Senior Award, Flaherty Visiting Professorship, and Humboldt Fellowship, in addition to several teaching awards.

He has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2020.

 

 

Aminah Robinson Fayek Vice-President (Research and Innovation) and Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Alberta

Aminah Robinson Fayek

Dr. Aminah Robinson Fayek started in the position of Vice-President (Research and Innovation) at the University of Alberta on July 1, 2021.

Throughout her academic career, Dr. Robinson Fayek has demonstrated excellence in teaching, research, innovation, and partnership on a number of fronts. Upon completing her PhD in construction engineering and project management at the University of Melbourne, Dr. Robinson Fayek joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Engineering in 1997 and became full professor in 2004. Since 2008, Dr. Robinson Fayek has held the Ledcor Professorship in Construction Engineering, with a mandate to advance research, scholarship, and learning in construction. In 2017, she was awarded a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Fuzzy Hybrid Decision Support Systems for Construction, a position she continues to hold. She is also currently serving her third term as NSERC Senior Industrial Research Chair in Strategic Construction Modeling and Delivery.

She has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2022.

 

 

Ian Stavness Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Saskatchewan & GIFS Chair, Computational Agriculture, Global Institute for Food Security

Ian Stavness

Ian Stavness is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan and the GIFS Research Chair in Computational Agriculture. He received his PhD at UBC in 2011 and held a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University with the NIH Center for Biomedical Computation in 2012. He directs the Biological Imaging & Graphics (BIG) lab focused on 3D modeling, computer graphics, image analysis and machine learning for biological and biomedical applications. His research group is currently focused on agricultural applications of computer modeling and machine learning, including plant breeding, image-informed agronomy, and economic and environmental sustainability in food production.

He has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2021.

 

 

Elizabeth A. Thompson Professor Emeritus, Department of Statistics, University of Washington

Elizabeth A. Thompson

Elizabeth A. Thompson is a professor emerita in the Department of Statistics, University of Washington. Until her retirement in 2018 she was professor of Statistics and also adjunct professor in the departments of Biostatistics and of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington, and the Director of the University of Washington Interdisciplinary Faculty Group in Statistical Genetics (1999-2017).She remains Director of an Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate program in Statistical Genetics. She received her B.A. (1970) in mathematics and Ph.D. (1974) in mathematical statistics from Cambridge University, UK and then did postdoctoral work in the Department of Genetics, Stanford University, before taking up a position on the faculty of the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics, University of Cambridge in 1976. She served as a University Teaching Officer on the faculty from 1976 to 1985, while she also was a Fellow of Kings College Cambridge from 1975-81, and then Fellow and Director of Studies in Mathematics at Newnham College. She joined the faculty of the University of Washington in December 1985, as a professor of statistics, where she served as Chair 1989-1994, and again 2011-2014.

Dr. Thompson's research interest is in the development of methods for mode-based likelihood inference from genetic data, and particularly from data observed on large and complex pedigree structures. Questions of interest range from analyses of long-term gene frequency differentiation in widely dispersed populations, to short-term extinction of genes in the small population of a highly endangered species; from inference of genealogical relationships among individuals to inference of the genetic basis of traits from data observed on members of a known pedigree; and from analyses of patterns of genome sharing in plants to modern methods for human linkage analysis. In recent years, several of these questions have been addressed using Monte Carlo likelihood. She has held NSF grants in Population Biology (1987-90), Conservation Biology (1990-93) and Computational Biology (1993-97 and 1998-2002). Also in interdisciplinary development, she was a member of the Program in Mathematics and Molecular Biology (1994-2006), funded as a Burroughs Welcome Interfaces in Science program with the mission to recruit and train students from the mathematical sciences in cross-disciplinary work in mathematical molecular biology. At the University of Washington, she participated in interdisciplinary graduate programs in Quantitative Ecology & Resource Management, in Computational Molecular Biology, and in the Mathematical Biology Fellows program. However, her core research has been through an NIH award in the Genetic Epidemiology of Complex Traits. Initially funded in 1991, this award has been an R37 MERIT award since 2008, and ends only now in 2020.

Dr Thompson has served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the Banff International Research Station, and the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics and on the Board of Trustees of the National Institute for Statistical Science., and as a member of Council of the International Statistical Institute. She has also served on the National Research Council Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, on the Committee to Review the Scientific Approaches used during the FBI's investigation of the 2001 Anthrax letters, and is a current member of the Board of Mathematical Sciences and Analytics. Her primary academic society affiliation has been to the International Biometric Society (IBS), first serving as a member of the British Region Committee in 1984-5. From 1997-1999, she served on the Executive Committee of West North American Region(WNAR) and was WNAR President in 1998. She was a member of the Council of the IBS, 2006-2013, and President 2016-2017.

Dr. Thompson is a recipient of a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Cambridge, the inaugural Jerome Sacks award for cross-disciplinary research from the National Institute for Statistical Science, the Weldon Prize for contributions to Biometric Science from Oxford University, UK, and of a Guggenheim fellowship. She is an honorary fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the US National Academy of Sciences.

She has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2020.

 

 

Ozgur Yilmaz PIMS Director and Professor of Mathematics at the University of British Columbia

Ozgur Yilmaz

Özgür Yilmaz is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on the mathematics of information and data. He received his PhD in Applied and Computational Mathematics from Princeton University in 2001. He held a postdoctoral position at University of Maryland, College Park before joining UBC in 2004.Dr. Yilmaz serves on the editorial boards of various journals including Applied and Computational Harmonic Analysis. He is affiliated with several institutes at UBC, including the Institute of Applied Mathematics, Data Science Institute, and CAIDA, and has served as the Deputy Director of the Banff International Research Station (BIRS) from 2019 - 2020. He has been involved with PIMS in many capacities, most recently as one of the leaders in the Collaborative Research Group (CRG) in High Dimensional Data Analysis.

He has been a member of the PIMS Board of Directors since 2021.