Douglas Paul Wiens is a Canadian statistician

Statistician

A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. The core of that work is to measure, interpret, and describe the world and human activity patterns within it...

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

University of Alberta

The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...

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Wiens earned a B.Sc. in mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 (1972), two masters degrees in mathematical logic

Mathematical logic

Mathematical logic is a subfield of mathematics with close connections to foundations of mathematics, theoretical computer science and philosophical logic. The field includes both the mathematical study of logic and the applications of formal logic to other areas of mathematics...

 (1974) and statistics

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

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

University of Calgary

The University of Calgary is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1966 the U of C is composed of 14 faculties and more than 85 research institutes and centres.More than 25,000 undergraduate and 5,500 graduate students are currently...

. As part of his work on mathematical logic, in connection with Hilbert's tenth problem

Hilbert's tenth problem

Hilbert's tenth problem is the tenth on the list of Hilbert's problems of 1900. Its statement is as follows:Given a Diophantine equation with any number of unknown quantities and with rational integral numerical coefficients: To devise a process according to which it can be determined in a finite...

, 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

Prime number

A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself. A natural number greater than 1 that is not a prime number is called a composite number. For example 5 is prime, as only 1 and 5 divide it, whereas 6 is composite, since it has the divisors 2...

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

Mathematical Association of America

The Mathematical Association of America 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 and applied mathematicians; computer scientists;...

 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

Dalhousie University is a public research university located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The university comprises eleven faculties including Schulich School of Law and Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine. It also includes the faculties of architecture, planning and engineering located at...

, and moved in 1987 to Alberta.

Wiens was editor-in-chief of The Canadian Journal of Statistics 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

Fellow

A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...

 of the American Statistical Association

American Statistical Association

The American Statistical Association , is the main professional US organization for statisticians and related professions. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest, continuously operating professional society in the United States...

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External links

• Home page at the University of Alberta