PhD track in Applied Statistics and Optimization
The PhD track in Applied Statistics and Optimization will enable a student to gain basic expertise in Statistics and Operations Research and to augment it with specialized coursework that will lead to original methodological research.
First-year Courses
For the track in Applied Statistics and Optimization, the following four courses are required as first-year courses:
Fall:
STOR 664 (formerly STAT174) Applied Statistics I
STOR 612 (formerly OR210) Models in Operations Research
Spring:
STOR 665 (formerly STAT175) Applied Statistics II
STOR 614 (formerly OR211) Linear Programming
In addition at least two courses from the following list must be chosen in the first year.
STOR 654 (formerly STAT164) Statistical Theory I - Fall
STOR 655 (formerly STAT165) Statistical Theory II - Spring
STOR 641 (formerly OR220) Stochastic Models in O.R. I - Fall
STOR 762 (formerly OR233) Discrete Event Simulation – Fall
Additional course requirements
Every INSTORE PhD student is required to take four STOR courses above core level. For the track in Applied Statistics and Optimization, these should normally include at least two of the following list:
STOR 754 (STAT 185): Time series and multivariate analysis
STOR 756 (STAT 194): Design of experiments and robustness
STOR 757 (STAT 195): Bayesian statistics and generalized linear models
STOR 712 (OR 212): Mathematical Programming
STOR 722 (OR 214): Integer Programming
STOR 724 (OR 215): Networks
STOR 743 (OR 222): Stochastic Models III (stochastic dynamic programming)
In addition to the above, every student is expected to take the STOR Consulting Course and the STOR Presentation Course.
CWE
The INSTORE program requires that students offer six courses for the CWE. For the track in Applied Statistics and Optimization, four of them must be STOR 664 and STOR 665 (paired together as Paper III of the Statistics CWE), STOR 612 and STOR 614 (also a paper of the Operations Research CWE). For the remaining two CWE papers, the student has the right to choose from STOR core courses 654, 655, 641, 762, or may offer one or two external courses with the agreement of the DGS and the instructor of the course(s) in question.
External courses
It is a requirement of the INSTORE program that every student take at least two courses outside the STOR department.
For the track in Applied Statistics and Optimization, it is encouraged that students pick some “cross-disciplinary area” and take at least TWO courses within that area, as well as having a faculty member from that area represented on their committee. Possible external areas include biostatistics, computer science, biology, genetics, environmental science, sociology, econometrics etc. Note that several of these are spread across several different departments and it is not required that the courses and external faculty member should all be from the same department.
In addition to the formal course requirements, it is anticipated that research conducted within this program will require advanced programming skills using a language such as C++, C or Fortran. Students who do not already have this background are encouraged to take a programming course such as COMP 411 (formerly 114).
