David Matthews Biography

Prior to coming to Waterloo (UW), I obtained B.A. and M.A. degrees at the University of Western Ontario and then headed for England to earn a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of London (Imperial College). Although my appointment at Waterloo has been continuous since the conclusion of my Ph.D. studies in 1975, I have nevertheless managed to arrange various long-term sojourns in four countries on three different continents since joining the Department. My interest in biostatistics was spawned at the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington where I worked as a statistical consultant to researchers in immunology, medical oncology and pathology. The book ``Using and Understanding Medical Statistics'', which I co-authored with Vern Farewell, was one outcome of a sixteen-month sojourn in Seattle. A second notable result was meeting and marrying my wife Nancy. In 1983-84 we spent twelve months visiting first The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and then the Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Bern. For four years, from 1987-91, I was the Associate Chair for Graduate Affairs in this Department. In 1991-92 our family spent a year in Australia, where I was Senior Research Associate in the Health Servies Research Group at the University of Newcastle. For the next six years, I served as Director of the Statistical Consulting Service here at UW. Our most recent foray abroad took the four of us -- Nancy and I have two sons, Lukas and Joshua -- to England, where I spent a year as an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Statistical Science at University College, London. From January to December 2000, I served as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Affairs in the Faculty of Mathematics, and at the beginning of January, 2001, I began my appointment as Chair of the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science.

[Degrees][Publications][Homepage]

David E. Matthews Biography