Xiaoting Li

Biography

I joined the Department of Statistics at the University of Manitoba as an Assistant Professor in September 2025. Prior to that, I completed my Ph.D. in Statistics at the University of British Columbia, where I was supervised by Dr. Harry Joe. My doctoral research, funded by the NSERC Doctoral Scholarship and the Scotiabank Risk Analytics Initiative, focused on statistical inference for multivariate extremes with applications to systemic risk in financial systems.

I graduated in June 2025 with the Marshall Prize for Excellence in Statistics awarded by the department of Statistics [Award announcement] and the Lorraine Schwartz Prize in Probability awarded by the department of Mathematics [Award announcement]. In 2026, I received the Pierre Robillard Award from the Statistical Society of Canada, which recognizes the best PhD thesis in statistics or probability defended at a Canadian university. [Award News]

Prior to my doctoral studies, I obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Joint Honours Economics and Finance from McGill University, graduating with the Allen Oliver Gold Medal. Motivated by a strong interest in quantitative research, I continued my graduate training in Statistics under the supervison of Dr. Christian Genest, who introduced me to extreme value theory and guided my early research on the modeling of clustered extremes for hydrological applications.