School of Graduate Studies
Queen's UniversityBiostatistics
M.Sc.
The Department of Community Health and Epidemiology and Department of Mathematics and Statistics jointly offer a collaborative M.Sc. program with a specialization in biostatistics. The two departments offer strong graduate programs that include a broad range of courses in statistics, biostatistics, epidemiology, and health services research.
By combining these resources, students in the collaborative program will have unique opportunities to develop the analytic skills and practical experience needed to interact with practitioners and to work on current research projects in a variety of health areas.
Queen’s University has a unique health research environment with excellent research groups in most major fields in health sciences such as the NCIC Clinical Trials Group and the Cancer Care and Epidemiology Group in the Queen's Cancer Research Institute, the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, Emergency Medicine and Injury Research Group, Queen’s – ICES Health Services Research, Social Program Evaluation Group, Centre for Studies in Primary Care, Centre for Obesity and Research Education (CORE), Nursing (PRN) group, Mental Health Research Group, Clinical Research Centre in Kingston General Hospital (KGH), and Research and Education Program at KFL&A Public Health Unit.
Program Contacts
Contact the Graduate Assistant in the department in which you are applying:
Tim Rosillo
Graduate Assistant
Department of Community Health & Epidemiology
Room 301, Carruthers Hall
Queen’s University
Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6
Phone: 613.533.2901
Jennifer Read
Graduate Assistant
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Queen’s University
Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6
Phone: 613.533.2405
Application Deadline:
January 31st (Department of Community Health and Epidemiology). All completed applications will be reviewed starting in February each year. Notification of acceptance commences in early Spring.
January 31st (Department of Mathematics and Statistics)
Degrees Offered / Length of Program
- M.Sc. in Epidemiology with Specialization in Biostatistics: 12 months, full time; part time available case by case
- M.Sc. in Mathmatics and Statistics with Specialization in Biostatistics: 12 months, full time; part time available case by case
Method of Completion
All students are required to complete eight courses in two terms (including 6 core courses and two elective courses approved by the home department) and a one-term supervised practicum project in biostatistics. In the practicum, students will complete either a research project pertaining to some aspect of the biostatistics methodological research work of their supervisor or a practicum placement with an academic or industry-based research group pertaining to the biostatistics applications.
Through the combination of coursework and practicum experience, the program stresses the development of the analytical, technical and interpersonal skills required for a biostatistician to work effectively in multi-disciplinary health research environments.
Degree Level Expectations & Learning Outcomes
M.Sc - view this information as a PDF (301KB)
Supervisors and Fields of Study
Students will be registered in their home department, where they will be assigned a supervisor.
Supervisors and research interests in Community Health and Epidemiology:
- Judy-Anne Chapman: Transdisciplinary breast cancer research: proposing statistical standardization of hormone receptor values, improvements for cancer survival analyses, and new genome era tumour sample size considerations.
- Bingshu Chen: Survival analysis, design and analysis of clinical trials, cancer genetics and epidemiology.
- Keyue Ding: Design and analysis of clinical trials, statistical issues in biomarker study, sequential analysis, and statistical computing.
- Miu Lam: Biostatistical methods, analysis of correlated data including longitudinal repeated measures, multilevel and cluster data.
- Paul Peng: Cure models, multivariate survival models, statistical computing and Bayesian methods, statistical models for population level data analysis, statistical consulting.
- Dongsheng Tu: Methodological research on the development and evaluation of statistical procedures for the design and analysis of cancer clinical trials; general mathematical theory of statistics.
Supervisors & research interests in Mathematics & Statistics:
- Wenyu Jiang: Statistical analysis of genomic data; statistical methods in clinical trials; survival analysis; resampling methods.
- Devon Lin: Theory and applications of fractional factorial designs, design construction for computer experiments, evaluation of complex computer models, variance estimation in complex survey.
- Glen Takahara: Bayesian methods and applications, orientation data analysis, and functional data.
- David Thomson: Analysis of global climate data, space physics, financial time series.
Employment Opportunities
The demand for biostatisticians in Canada and internationally is very high. Graduates can expect to find stimulating employment opportunities in places such as pharmaceutical companies, private industry, contract research organizations, regional or national centers for health research, academic centers, public health and government agencies, medical research institutions, and universities.
Funding Information
All students in the program will be considered for funding support in accordance with their respective home program's funding policy. They will be eligible to apply for teaching assistantships in either home department. Students participating in a practicum within Queen's health research groups may receive a research assistantship. Students are also encouraged to apply for external scholarships such as ACCELERATE Ontario — Ontario's Graduate Research Internship Program.
Academic Prerequisites
Students may apply to either the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology or the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. They must meet the academic prerequisites of the Master program through which they will be applying in order to be considered for the collaborative program. Applicants to the collaborative program will normally have an Honours B.Sc. degree with high standing (75% or above), sound analytical training, and a strong interest in applications in biology, life sciences, or health sciences.
Test Requirements
A TOEFL score (or equivalent) with satisfactory standing may be required if native languages of a student do not include English. All applicants with a degree from a non-Canadian University may be required to submit GRE scores. See department for details.
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