Douglas Paul Wiens is a Canadian

statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...

; he is a professor in the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Rutherfor ...

. Wiens earned a B.Sc. in

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

(1972), two master's degrees in

mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of for ...

(1974) and

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

(1979), and a Ph.D. in statistics (1982), all from the

University of Calgary The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...

.Education and Professional Experience
from Wiens' web site at Alberta, retrieved 2010-02-07. As part of his work on mathematical logic, in connection with

Hilbert's tenth problem Hilbert's tenth problem is the tenth on the list of mathematical problems that the German mathematician David Hilbert posed in 1900. It is the challenge to provide a general algorithm which, for any given Diophantine equation (a polynomial equat ...

, Wiens helped find a diophantine formula for the primes: that is, multivariate polynomial with the property that the positive values of this polynomial, over integer arguments, are exactly the

prime number A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

s. Wiens and his co-authors won the Lester R. Ford award of the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure a ...

in 1977 for their paper describing this result. His Ph.D. dissertation was entitled ''Robust Estimation for Multivariate Location and Scale in the Presence of Asymmetry'' and was supervised by John R. Collins. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1982, Wiens took a faculty position at

Dalhousie University Dalhousie University (commonly known as Dal) is a large public research university in Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the fou ...

, and moved in 1987 to Alberta. Wiens was editor-in-chief of ''

The Canadian Journal of Statistics The Canadian Journal of Statistics / La Revue Canadienne de Statistique is the official journal of the Statistical Society of Canada. Established in 1973, the journal is published quarterly by John Wiley & Sons John Wiley & Sons, Inc., common ...

'' from 2004 to 2006 and program chair of the 2003 annual meeting of the Statistical Society of Canada. Along with the Ford award, Wiens received The ''Canadian Journal of Statistics'' Award in 1990 for his paper "Minimax-variance ''L''- and ''R''-estimators of location". In 2005 he was elected as a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the American Statistical Association.ASA Fellows
, retrieved 2010-01-07.

References

External links

Home page
at the University of Alberta Canadian statisticians Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University of Calgary alumni Academic staff of the Dalhousie University Academic staff of the University of Alberta Fellows of the American Statistical Association Place of birth missing (living people) {{Canada-scientist-stub