Each year, CANSSI awards postdoctoral fellowships worth $70,000 over two years to exceptional young statisticians. The fellowships are unique in that they are designed to provide a multi-faceted experience that prepares recipients for a variety of careers in statistical sciences.
Recipients are jointly supervised by two professors from different universities and receive opportunities for interdisciplinary or applied collaboration, teaching, and professional development, as well as participating in a major research project. The program has become a stepping stone to successful careers in research, academia, and beyond.
For 2026, CANSSI is funding two CANSSI Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowships, one CANSSI-StatLab Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship (in partnership with the Centre de recherches mathématiques Statistics Laboratory (CRM StatLab)), and one CANSTAT-CANSSI Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship.
We are pleased to introduce this year’s recipients:
- Guneet Singh Dhillon is the recipient of a 2026 CANSSI Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship. Guneet completed his PhD in statistics at the University of Oxford in 2026. His doctoral research focused on the robustness of modern predictive and generative machine learning systems. His postdoctoral work will focus on “E-Values for Data Science and Risk Management” under the supervision of Professors Ruodu Wang (University of Waterloo) and Christopher Blier-Wong (University of Toronto). Read more about Guneet and his research.
- Kangyi (Ken) Peng is the recipient of a 2026 CANSSI Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship. Ken received a PhD in statistics from Simon Fraser University (SFU) in 2025 for his work on statistical modelling for dynamic and latent-process systems, with applications in environmental public-health surveillance and sports analytics. His postdoctoral research will address “AI-Powered Statistical Analysis for Elite Team Sports” under the co-supervision of Professor Tim Swartz (SFU) and Professor Tianyu Guan (York University). Read more about Ken and his research.
- Yidan Cui is the recipient of the 2026 CANSSI-StatLab Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship. Yidan completed her PhD in biostatistics at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2025. Her doctoral research developed three statistical frameworks for analyzing high-dimensional omics data in large-scale cohort studies, rigorously evaluated through simulations and applied to real datasets. Her postdoctoral project will focus on “Advancing Statistical Inference in Spatial Genomics: Methods for Multi-Slice Data” under the co-supervision of Professor Dehan Kong (University of Toronto) and Professor Qihuang Zhang (McGill University). Read more about Yidan and her research.
- Megan Jones is the recipient of a 2026 CANSTAT-CANSSI Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship. Megan completed her PhD in biostatistics at Vanderbilt University in 2026. Her dissertation focused on effect size estimation and inference, primarily applied to neuroimaging, with an additional focus on machine learning in predictive neuroimaging and improving estimation of predictive accuracy effect sizes via modern semiparametric methods. She will be exploring “Statistical Learning and Inference for Longitudinal Patient-Reported Outcomes in Cancer Trials” under the co-supervision of Professor Wei Tu (Queen’s University) and Professor Yi Liu (York University). Read more about Megan and her research.
Congratulations, Guneet, Ken, Yidan, and Megan!
