Dr. Peter W. MacDonald
About
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics & Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo. I work primarily on statistical analysis and methods for multiple and dynamic networks. I also have interests in post-selection inference, and formally private and fair statistical methods for network data.
I was formerly (2023-2024) a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Mathematics & Statistics at McGill University, under the supervision of Dr. Eric D. Kolaczyk.
I completed my PhD (2018-2023) at the University of Michigan, co-advised by Dr. Elizaveta Levina and Dr. Ji Zhu. I am also an alumnus of their research group. Previously, I received my MMath (Statistics 2017-2018) and my BMath (Statistics and Pure Mathematics 2012-2017) from the University of Waterloo.
Research Interests and Selected Publications
Multilayer and dynamic networks
(with Elizaveta Levina and Ji Zhu, UMich)
- Latent space models for common and individual structure in multiplex networks (paper in Biometrika,
multiness R package on CRAN).
- Latent process models for functional networks (submitted, pre-print on arXiv,
fase R package on CRAN).
- Mesoscale inference for multilayer networks.
Post-selection inference
(with Dan Kessler and Snigdha Panigrahi, UMich)
- Valid post-selection inference with grouped sparsity (paper in the Journal of Machine Learning Research).
Multiple testing and false discovery rate (FDR) control
(with Kun Liang and Yingli Qin, UWaterloo)
- Dynamic-adaptive procedures which control the FDR (paper in the Electronic Journal of Statistics).
- Multiple hypothesis testing with group information (book chapter in Modern Statistical Methods for Health Research).
Interdisciplinary work
(supervised by Ji Zhu, UMich; Joel Rubenstein, VA Hospital and UMich Medicine)
- Predicting incident adenocarcinoma of the esophagus or gastric cardia using machine learning of electronic health records (paper in Gastroenterology)
Links
Education
- PhD, University of Michigan, 2023
- MMath, University of Waterloo, 2018
- BMath, University of Waterloo, 2017
Selected awards and honors
- NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2023-24
- Department of Statistics Outstanding Dissertation Award, University of Michigan 2023
- Rackham Pre-doctoral Fellowship, University of Michigan 2022-2023
- Statistical Learning and Data Science (SLDS) Student Paper Award, JSM 2021
- Rackham International Student Fellowship, University of Michigan, 2019
Email: pwmacdon@uwaterloo.ca