The James Stewart fund provides funding for students in Mathematics and Statistics to participate in opportunities that might not otherwise be available to them. These can include, but are not limited to, summer research with faculty at McMaster or elsewhere, travel to conferences, outreach activities. Undergraduate students at McMaster may wish to have a research opportunity that is not covered by the NSERC USRA awards; for example, to work for just one or two months, or to work with a faculty member at another university. Students at another university may apply for funding to work with a McMaster faculty member. Undergraduate or graduate students may apply for support to travel to a relevant conference.
Awards are available to students in any Mathematics and Statistics program at McMaster, and to students in any program to work with a faculty member in the Mathematics and Statistics department at McMaster.
Applications for Small Awards (up to $500) will be accepted at any time and funded on a rolling basis. For Large Awards (up to $5000) there will be a call for proposals in the winter term. It is expected, although exceptions are possible, that funding will be used in the subsequent summer. Applications demonstrating that matching funds are being provided will be viewed more favourably than those without. Applications by undergraduates and by graduate students will be assessed separately. Previous awards can be viewed here.
Applications are now invited for Large Awards for summer 2022.
An application consists of:
- a description of the proposed project (up to one page), with a timeframe;
- a budget, specifying how much funding is requested and how it will be spent (e.g. stipend, travel, etc);
- a cv;
- an (informal) transcript;
- a letter of support from a faculty member at McMaster (potential supervisors and projects can be viewed here). If research is to be conducted at another university, there should be a letter of invitation from that university. If a student is registered at another university, there should be a letter of recommendation from that university.

Students are encouraged to consult with the undergraduate advisor Adam Van Tuyl or the graduate advisor Ben Bolker for advice on the budget and the feasibility of their project.
All applications should be sent to fogarty@mcmaster.ca with subject line Stewart Award. Applications are due March 22, 2022.

We are happy to announce the Third McMaster & Co-operators Problem Solving e-Workshop edition, jointly organized by the Department of Mathematics & Statistics at McMaster University (https://www.math.mcmaster.ca/) and The Co-operators General Insurance Company (https://www.cooperators.ca/).

The Workshop will take place online on Saturday, March 12^th, 2022, and will gather representatives from industry, academic mathematicians, undergraduate and graduate students.

The main goal of this workshop is to provide the students with an experiential learning opportunity through a concrete real-world problem with real data, submitted by the insurance company. The participants will work individually or in study groups (up to 4 students) and will have the opportunity to learn and develop their interpersonal and technical skills (including data science, statistics, optimization, mathematical finance, programming, communication, etc.). This would also enable the industrial partner to connect with McMaster students. This workshop is also aimed to be an “incubator” of collaborations, that can lead to more long-term and impactful relationships between the participants and the industrial partner.

The two first editions of the Workshop resulted in many opportunities for the participants, such as job placement, job shadowing, job interviews, and presentations to The Co-operators managerial teams.
Moreover, The Co-operators is currently hiring and actively looking for new talents (co-op and permanent positions) to join their forces for the Actuarial and Business Intelligence teams.

Here is the link for registration: https://forms.office.com/r/gQ9kzUjkpC

The problem description, data, information sessions’ details and more instructions will be sent directly by email to participants upon registration.

Here are some important dates and deadlines:
• February 10th, 2022: Registration opens
• February 18th, 2022: Start of the qualification round
• March 1st, 2022: Registration ends
• March 6th, 2022: End of the qualification round
• March 7th, 2022: Announcement of the finalists (e-Workshop participants)
• March 12th, 2022 (Pi-day -2): A full day e-workshop
• April/May 2022: Announcement of the winners and the prizes for the participants (in-person celebration and networking event)

Here are some of the prizes offered to the participants:
• $2,000*(π -2) total for the top groups
• Invitation to present the results to The Co-operators managerial team
• Job Shadowing
• Speed interviews
• Door prizes, and more!

**NEW** Undergraduate Students NSERC USRA Summer 2022, applications due February 18, 2022.

Congratulations to Dr Paul McNicholas who has received the John L. Synge Award from the Royal Society of Canada in recognition of his outstanding research in the mathematical sciences. The award was established in honour of one of the first mathematicians in Canada to obtain international recognition through research, and is endowed by friends of J.L. Synge, society Fellows, the McLean Foundation and Synge’s daughter, Cathleen Synge Morawetz, FRSC. Dr McNicholas, whose research is focused on the development, implementation and application of statistical methods, is the Canada Research Chair in Computational Statistics, director of the MacDATA Institute and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Classification.