Stephen Chamberlin, a professor in York’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics in the Faculty of Science, died on January 28 at the age of 53.
Professor Chamberlin was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and completed his PhD at the University of Waterloo under the supervision of Professor David A. Sprott. He joined the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in 1991 after holding a NATO postdoctoral fellowship during which he collaborated with Ole Barndorff-Nielsen at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. His research focused on the properties of likelihood functions for statistical inference.
He is fondly remembered by his colleagues and students. He assumed many leadership roles in the department and in the statistical community. He served many terms as director of the statistics section and served as Associate Chair of the department from 2009 to 2012. He taught courses in the graduate program in Statistics and was very active in the curriculum development of the undergraduate program.
More recently he was Treasurer of the Southern Ontario Regional Association of the Statistical Society of Canada and the American Statistical Association.
Professor Chamberlin is survived by his sister Elizabeth and his brother Peter.