LIQUN DIAO

Welcome

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo. I am interested in developing and applying statistical methods and statistical learning algorithms to advance knowledge in fields including medicine, public health, and insurance. I welcome enquiries from strong students interested in graduate studies or post-doctoral fellowships.

  • + 1 (519) 888 4567 x 46130

  • liqun.diao@uwaterloo.ca

  • Room 4112 M3-200 University Avenue West Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada

Biography

​I obtained my Ph.D. degree in Statistics - Biostatistics from the University of Waterloo in 2013. My doctoral dissertation studies diverse problems in event history analysis, but all with a general theme involving complex dependencies modelled by copula functions, which brought me the 2013 Pierre Robillard Award of the Statistical Society of Canada for the best doctoral thesis in probability or statistics defended at a Canadian university in 2013. I worked as a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology at the University of Rochester in the United States in 2014. My postdoctoral experiences at Rochester got me to start research on the development of novel statistical methods for building, selecting and evaluating relevant risk indices using recursive partitioning and other machine learning methods for survival data. I started to work as a research assistant professor in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo since 2015 and started a tenure-track position in 2022. I expanded my research to a broad spectrum of areas including recursive partitioning learning, causal inference, dependence modeling, Bayesian methods, and two-phase design.

Education

2007 

                B.Econ. (Statistics).                     Renmin University of China Beijing, China

2009

M.Math. (Statistics - Biostatistics) The University of Waterloo  Waterloo, Canada

2013

Ph.D. (Statistics - Biostatistics)      The University of Waterloo  Waterloo, Canada

Professional Experience

October 2019 -Present 

Affiliate Researcher

Health Data Science Lab The University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada

April 2019 - Present 

Affiliate Researcher

Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute The University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada

May 2022 -  Present

Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track)

Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science  The University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada   

July 2015 -            April 2022

Research Assistant Professor

Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science   The University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada      - Maternity Leaves from 08/2018 to 05/2019 and from 08/2020 to 07/2021

October 2014 - June 2015

Post-doctoral Fellow

Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science  The University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada 

October 2013 - September 2014

Post-doctoral Associate

Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology  The University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, United States

Prestigious Award

2013 Pierre Robillard Award, the Statistical Society of Canada

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The best doctoral thesis in probability or statistics defended at a Canadian university in 2013.

Other Awards & Scholarships

2024

2024 Outstanding Performance Award

The University of Waterloo Effective May 1, 2005, in accordance with the 2003 Faculty Salary Settlement, the University of Waterloo established an Outstanding Performance Fund to reward faculty members for outstanding contribution in teaching and scholarship. Five out of about sixty faculty members in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science were selected for this award in 2024 and I was the only pre-tenured recipient.

2024

2024 Statistics and Actuarial Science Teaching Award

The University of Waterloo This award recognizes sustained commitment to and excellence in teaching among regular faculty members in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo. The award comes with a cash prize of $500. Two recipients among about sixty faculty members were selected for this award in 2024.

2012 - 2013

UW Senate Scholarship

The University of Waterloo

2009 - 2013

University of Waterloo Graduate Scholarship

The University of Waterloo

2009 - 2013

International Doctoral Student Award

The University of Waterloo

2009 - 2012

Statistics and Actuarial Science Chair’s Award

The University of Waterloo

2008 - 2012

Math Graduate Experience Award

The University of Waterloo

2008 - 2009

International Master’s Student Award

The University of Waterloo