Assistant Professor of Statistics,
Department of Mathematics,
Trent University
The Queen's Mathematics & Statistics department is smaller than in some other places, but has tremendous breadth of skill and knowledge. I never found any of the professors to be less than approachable, and the smaller cohort sizes mean you know essentially everyone in the graduate program within a few months of arriving at Queen's. In addition, Kingston is a small but beautiful city, easily explored, with a spectacular summer season helping make up for the typically dreary Ontario winter.
I completed my dissertation in statistics in fall of 2012, after some roundabout travels through different disciplines: an undergraduate degree in engineering, a Masters in mathematics, and finally, statistics. Even my statistics doctorate was not without some changes: my proposal, defended in early 2008, bears no resemblance whatsoever to the final dissertation of 2012. Despite these changes and switches as I explored the options available to me, the department and my supervisor were never anything less than supportive and helpful.
"Support was also provided by other, non-supervising faculty, and several relationships were formed which I retain and value to this day."
Wesley Burr - Ph.D. 2012
My doctoral supervisor was incredibly generous with his time and resources, offering me numerous travel opportunities (at least 8 conferences across Masters and PhD, three of which were international) and funding for my entire period of study. Being given support to explore new areas of statistics, and to eventually settle on a topic for dissertation outside of his research focus was also valuable and appreciated. Support was also provided by other, non-supervising faculty, and several relationships were formed which I retain and value to this day: in fact, a colleague at Queen's and I have just offered admission to several new Masters students for Fall 2017.
After completing my PhD in 2012, I spent a little over two years at the Health Canada agency in the Environmental Health Research and Safety Bureau as a visiting (statistical research) fellow. I then accepted a position at Trent University, a small liberal arts college in Ontario, where I am now an assistant professor. I remember all of my time at Queen's with fondness, and highly recommend the environment there to anyone interested in graduate studies in mathematics or statistics.