This cash prize with accompanying certificate honours Professor Albert Marshall for his seminal work in the theory of statistical reliability and for his contributions to the development of statistics at UBC. The prize is normally awarded annually to a statistics graduate student who has achieved great distinction according to the professional and academic criteria by which members of our discipline are judged. The criteria for this award would include proficiency in statistical theory and in the practical application of statistical theory. The award is usually given in the first quarter of the year.
Professor Marshall came to UBC in 1975 to become a Professor of Statistics in the Department of Mathematics. By then he had already completed much of the work in reliability for which he is internationally known. A lot of that work was done while he was employed by Boeing along with a group of other distinguished statistical scientists researching reliability. He has and continues to publish extensively, and he invented, with Professor Ingram Olkin, the well-known Marshall-Olkin exponential distribution. Among other things, their fruitful collaboration yielded a text on majorization called "Inequalities: Theory of Majorization and Its Applications," which has become a much cited classic. He has been widely recognized outside of UBC for his scholarly achievements. At UBC, Professor Marshall was instrumental in establishing the Department more than a decade ago and served as its Acting Head in the first year of its existence. His active research career continues, and he is now a Professor Emeritus in the Department.
The award, established in 1994, is supported by the Statistics Fund for Excellence.