On Monday 10 July 2017, Paul Whitfield, Senior Research Fellow with the Centre for Hydrology and Scientist Emeritus with Environment and Climate Change Canada, gave an invited Plenary talk titled Assessing hydrological and climatological models against observations at the Banff International Research Station workshop, Challenges in the Statistical Modelling of Stochastic Processes for the Natural Sciences.

The workshop, which was attended by forty eminent statisticians from across Europe and North America, focused on statistical models for natural science phenomena. It is now recognized that stochastic models whose behaviour more closely mirrors the scientific structure of the system under study provide a more interpretable framework for analyzing data.

Whitfield’s talk, which provides a thought-provoking discussion of how we might better assess how well our models can reproduce natural phenomena in hydrology and climatology, may be viewed online here.

Professor John Pomeroy, Director of the Centre for Hydrology and Associate Director of the Global Water Futures initiative, has been elevated to the rank of ‘Distinguished Professor’ by the University of Saskatchewan.

The title “honours and celebrates exceptional achievement in research, scholarly, or artistic work by University of Saskatchewan faculty or emeriti. This honorary title is a lifetime award that becomes Distinguished Professor Emeritus upon retirement”.

The awarding committee was impressed by Professor Pomeroy’s many research accomplishments and outstanding contributions to the university, and particularly by his work in the hydrology and global water policies, which they said has been “indicative of his visionary approach”, earning him a strong reputation in this branch of science.