Nadia Ghazzali (born April 3, 1961) is a Canadian statistician, the former president of the

Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières The Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) (''English: University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières''), also known as "l'université du peuple", established in 1969 and mainly located in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada, is a public universi ...

, where she continues to work as a professor in the department of mathematics and computer science. As a statistician, she is known for her work on NbClust, a package in the R statistical software system for

determining the number of clusters in a data set Determining the number of clusters in a data set, a quantity often labelled ''k'' as in the ''k''-means algorithm, is a frequent problem in data clustering, and is a distinct issue from the process of actually solving the clustering problem. For a ...

Education and career

Ghazzali was born on April 3, 1961, in

Casablanca Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...

. After studying at the

University of Rennes 1 The University of Rennes 1 is a public university located in the city of Rennes, France. It is under the Academy of Rennes. It specializes in science, technology, law, economics, management and philosophy. There are currently about students en ...

in France, she came to Canada as a postdoctoral researcher at

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

, and joined the faculty at the

Université Laval Université Laval is a public research university in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The university was founded by royal charter issued by Queen Victoria in 1852, with roots in the founding of the Séminaire de Québec in 1663 by François de Montmo ...

in 1993. She was president of the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières from 2012 until 2015, when she resigned after facing criticism from the Auditor General of Québec over management practices in university construction. Ghazzali is current (2021-2023) Deputy President of INWES, the

International Network of Women Engineers and Scientists International Network of Women Engineers and Scientists (INWES) is a current network for women professionals, which was founded in 2002 with the intention to support women and girls in engineering and science across the world. The current (2020-2023 ...

Recognition

At Laval, Ghazzali was given the NSERC Chair for Women in Science and Engineering in 2006. In the same year, she was named a corresponding member of the

Hassan II Academy of Sciences and Technologies The Hassan II Academy of Sciences and Technologies (french: Académie Hassan II des Sciences et Techniques, link=no) is a learned society A learned society (; also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an organizatio ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ghazzali, Nadia 1961 births Living people Moroccan mathematicians Canadian statisticians Women statisticians Université Laval faculty Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières faculty R (programming language) people