In memory of Dr. Lorraine Schwartz, Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics from 1960-1965, her friends and colleagues established this prize in 1966. It is awarded annually for distinctions in the fields of statistics and probability to an undergraduate or graduate student upon the recommendation of the Departments of Mathematics and Statistics.
Dr. Schwartz received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in1960, working with Professor Lucien Le Cam, with a thesis entitled "Consistency of Bayes' Procedures". She then took a position at UBC where she remained until her untimely death. However even in her brief career, she made seminal contributions to her field in published research papers that are still cited today. Her publication list includes the following journal articles.
- Schwartz, L and Wearden, S. (1959). A distribution-free asymptotic method of estimating, testing and setting confidence limits for heritability. Biometrics 15: 227-235.
- LeCam, L. and Schwartz, L. (1960). A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of consistent estimates. Annals of Mathematical Statistics 31: 140-150.
- Brieman, L, Schwartz, L, and LeCam, L. (1964). Consistent estimates and zero-one sets. Annals of Mathematical Statistics 35: 157-161.
- Schwartz, L. (1964). On consistency of Bayes procedures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 52: 46-49.
- Schwartz, L (1965). On Bayes procedures. Probability Theory and Related Fields 4: 10-26.