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Jubilee Medal for Science (co-winner)
Cormier with his award-winning poster. PHOTO: Robie Liscomb
By Melanie Tromp Hoover
Numbers and estimates may not be the first tools that come to mind when you think of modern medicine, but these are the instruments that may help a UVic grad solve some of the health sector’s biggest questions.
“I really enjoy using mathematics to solve real-world problems in a prestigious field like medicine—it gives you the ability to do amazing things,” says Eric Cormier, who graduates this month as co-winner of the Jubilee Medal for Science and with an honours BSc in mathematics and statistics. “Statistics are a way to use math to learn from data, and their applications are everywhere.”
For Cormier, statistics’ current application is a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)-funded summer work term on campus. This is the second research award that Cormier has taken on as an undergraduate at UVic, this time working with Dr. Farouk Nathoo (math and statistics) to model multi-state processes in modern medicine.
“If there are three stages—healthy, sick and dead, for example—I work on estimating the probability of moving from state to state,” explains Cormier. “I’m trying to figure out if current estimates of, say, a recovering stroke patient moving from a poor to moderate to excellent quality of life are accurate.” This type of work contributes to a doctor’s ability to plan patient-specific recovery (based on variables like age, severity of illness, etc.).
Cormier recently took his research on the road, presenting a case study on how climate change has affected lodgepole pine growth with partner Zheng Sun at the annual Statistics Society of Canada meeting in Vancouver on June 1.
Cormier and Sun took home first prize in the nationwide poster competition, a particularly motivating win for Cormier who was one of the few undergraduate students invited to attend.
Originally from Nelson, BC, Cormier moved west to take advantage of Victoria’s location and the reputation of UVic’s mathematics and statistics programs.
“I came to UVic and was amazed by all the opportunities presented to me, like the research projects through NSERC that allowed me to use what I was learning to make money,” explains Cormier, who also worked as a tutor, instructor and teaching assistant during his time at UVic. “It was awesome to have an opportunity to use my expertise to help people with the stuff that I find really interesting.”
Cormier isn’t sure what area of medicine his work will take him into, but he is ultimately interested in answering questions with numbers. He will begin work on his MSc in biostatistics and epidemiology this September at UBC.
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