... to our new faculty and staff. Our department continues to recruit exceptional talent from across the spectrum of statistical sciences and academic administration. Meet some of the new faces on our team!
Summer 2018 - Summer 2019
Monica Alexander
Monica joined the department as assistant professor joint in statistical sciences and sociology. She received a PhD in Demography and a Masters in Statistics from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to that she received a Masters of Social Research from ANU and a Bachelor of Science at the University of Tasmania.
Her research focuses on developing statistical methods to help measure disparities in demographic and health outcomes. She has worked on research projects with organizations such as UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Visit her website to learn more about Monica’s work.
Priya Sivathason
Priya began her career working for the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto, Scarborough. After several years of experience assisting students with course and program enrollment, data management, webmaster experience, TA administration, and much more, Priya joined the Department of Statistical Sciences in her new position of undergraduate and TA administrator. Her door is (almost always) open. Feel free to drop by!
Ting-Kam Leonard
Ting-Kam Leonard is an assistant professor in the Departments of Statistical Sciences at the University of Toronto and Computer and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Toronto Scarborough. Leonard completed his PhD in Mathematics at the University of Washington, after which he was a non-tenure track assistant professor at the University of Southern California.
His current research interests include probability, mathematical finance as well as the geometry of information.
Visit his website to learn more about Leonard’s work.
Linbo Wang
Linbo is an assistant professor in the Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Toronto and the Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough. Prior to this role, he was a postdoc in the Harvard Causal Inference Program. He obtained his PhD in Biostatistics from the University of Washington in March 2016.
His research interest is centered around causality and its interaction with statistics and machine learning.
Silvana Pesenti
Silvana joins the Department of Statistical Sciences as an assistant professor in Insurance Risk Management in 2019. She holds a Ph.D. in Actuarial Science and Insurance from Cass Business School, London, and a M.Sc. in Mathematics from ETH Zurich. Her research interests include developing sensitivity analysis for insurance and financial models, quantification of risk and uncertainty and stress testing.
Yuchong Zhang
Yuchong joined the Department of Statistical Sciences in 2018 as an assistant professor. She received her B.Sc. in Mathematics from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2010, and her Ph.D. in Applied and Interdisciplinary Mathematics from the University of Michigan in 2015. Before joining U of T, she worked at Columbia University as a term assistant professor.
Her main research interests include stochastic optimal control, mathematical finance, game theory and applied probability.