Kathryn Brenda MacGibbon-Taylor (July 31, 1944 – October 7, 2022) was a Canadian mathematician, statistician, and decision scientist. She was a professor of mathematics at the Université du Québec à Montréal[1] and was affiliated with the Group for Research in Decision Analysis.[2]

Brenda MacGibbon
Born(1944-07-31)July 31, 1944
DiedOctober 7, 2022(2022-10-07) (aged 78)
Education
SpouseJohn Taylor
Children3
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
ThesisK-Analytic Spaces and Countable Operations in Topology (1970)
Doctoral advisorDonald A. Dawson

Education and career

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MacGibbon began her career in pure mathematics, at McGill University. She earned a master's degree there in 1966, working with Michael Herschorn on differential equations,[3] and completed a Ph.D. in 1970, with a dissertation on topology supervised by Donald A. Dawson.[4][5]

As well as McGill and the Université du Québec à Montréal, she has also been affiliated with the Department of Decision Sciences and Management Information Systems at Concordia University in Montreal, where she was hired in 1986.[6] By 1993 she had moved to the Université du Québec à Montréal.[4]

Research

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Although MacGibbon's research has covered a wide range of topics in statistics,[4] including applications of statistics in the study of premenstrual syndrome,[7] and the use of smart shoes to monitor the rehabilitation of patients with hip fractures,[8] she was particularly known for her work in theoretical statistics on minimax estimators with constrained parameters.[4]

Recognition

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MacGibbon became the first woman to chair the Statistical Sciences Grant Selection Committee of the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, in 1993.[4] She was a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.[9]

Personal life

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MacGibbon was married to John Taylor, with whom she had 3 children. She died from complications of Alzheimer's disease and ALS on October 7, 2022, at the age of 78.[10]

References

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  1. ^ "Professeurs retraités" [Retired professors], Faculté des sciences: Site administratif du département de mathématiques (in French), Université du Québec à Montréal, retrieved 2020-08-29
  2. ^ Brenda MacGibbon, Associated member, GERAD, Group for Research in Decision Analysis (GERAD), archived from the original on 2020-09-28, retrieved 2020-08-29
  3. ^ MacGibbon, Brenda (1966), Oscillation theorems for ordinary differential equations, Master's thesis, McGill University
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Thompson, Mary E. (2014), "Reflections on women in statistics in Canada", in Lin, Xihong; Genest, Christian; Banks, David L.; Molenberghs, Geert; Scott, David W.; Wang, Jane-Ling (eds.), Past, Present, and Future of Statistical Science, CRC Press, pp. 203–216, ISBN 9781482204988. See in particular p. 208.
  5. ^ Brenda MacGibbon at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  6. ^ "At a glance" (PDF), The Thursday Report, Concordia University, p. 3, 27 November 1986, archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-11-19, retrieved 2020-08-29
  7. ^ Solomon, Heather (22 March 1990), "New statistical tool helps zero in on PMS" (PDF), The Thursday Report, Concordia University, p. 7, archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-11-18, retrieved 2020-08-29
  8. ^ Goldsobel, Gady (13 February 2017), ""Smart Soles" Help Patients Recover From A Broken Hip", Healthcanal
  9. ^ Honored IMS Fellows, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, retrieved 2020-08-29
  10. ^ "Kathryn Brenda MacGibbon(Brenda)". Remembering. Retrieved 2022-10-11.