mathematics

Mary E. Thompson

Mary E. Thompson is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mary E. Thompson rather than just read about it. In short: Mary Elinore Thompson is a Canadian statistician. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Statistics and Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo, the former president of the Statistical Society of Canada, and the founding scientific director of the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute.

Key takeaways

Mary E. Thompson belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mary E. Thompson to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mary E. Thompson from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Mary Elinore Thompson is a Canadian statistician. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Statistics and Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo, the former president of the Statistical Society of Canada, and the founding scientific director of the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute. Her research interests include survey methodology and statistical sampling; she is also known for her work applying statistics to guide tobacco control policy.

Education and career Thompson studied mathematics at the University of Toronto. She went to the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign for graduate study, earning a master's degree and her Ph.D. there. Her 1969 dissertation, supervised by Joseph L. Doob, was Some Aspects of Optimal Stopping Theory. From the completion of her doctorate to her retirement, she was a faculty member at the University of Waterloo. She was president of the Statistical Society of Canada for 2003–2004, and has been a director at the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute since 2012. Thompson is the author of Theory of Sample Surveys (Chapman & Hall, 1997).

Recognition Thompson was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1985, and of the Royal Society of Canada in 2006. She is also an elected member of the International Statistical Institute and a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. She won the Waksberg Award of Survey Methodology in 2008. The Statistical Society of Canada awarded her their Gold Medal in 2003, the Lise Manchester Award (with Geoffrey Fong, David Hammond) in 2006, for their work on tobacco, and their Distinguished Service Award in 2014. The Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies gave her their Elizabeth L. Scott Award in 2010 "for outstanding contributions in research, teaching, and service that have served to inspire women statisticians; for encouraging women at all levels to seek careers in statistics; for excellence in graduate student supervision and mentorship; and for her leadership to minimize gender-based inequalities in employment." In 2026, she was named as an Officer of the Order of Canada.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mary E. Thompson

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mary E. Thompson claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mary E. Thompson before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mary E. Thompson ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mary E. Thompson

In research: Mary E. Thompson appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mary E. Thompson in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mary E. Thompson is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century Canadian statisticians, Academic staff of the University of Waterloo, Canadian women statisticians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mary E. Thompson outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Mary E. Thompson in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mary E. Thompson means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mary E. Thompson out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mary E. Thompson in simple terms?

Why does Mary E. Thompson matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mary E. Thompson?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mary E. Thompson.