Candidate for the election to the Board of Governors of two full-time faculty members.

Rafal Kulik, PhD, is a Full Professor at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Ottawa. He holds MSc from the University of Ulm (Germany) and a PhD from the University of Wroclaw (Poland). After finishing his PhD, he spent three years as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Ottawa. Afterwards, he was recruited as a Lecturer by the School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sydney (Australia). He joined the University of Ottawa in 2007.  

Rafal Kulik has been teaching mathematics for over 20 years. He teaches probability, statistics, financial mathematics and machine learning on both undergraduate and graduate level. In 2009 he (with other colleagues from the Department) created Honours BSc program in Financial Mathematics and Economics, which became the largest program in the Department. He had also a leading role in creating a Joint Honours program in Data Science. He is also involved in the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences AIMS-Senegal, where he taught several courses.  

He has published two research monographs and over 60 articles in leading scientific journals. His research on extreme value theory and machine learning is currently funded by NSERC and CANSSI (Canadian Statistical Science Institute), while research on data privacy is being funded by MITACS and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. He currently supervises 7 students. He is the Associate Editor of four leading journals in the field.  

Rafal Kulik served as the chair of the Department between 2016-2019, as well as an interim chair in 2022-2023. Currently, he serves as the coordinator of Statistics and Financial Mathematics programs and is involved in several committees (online teaching, undergraduate program review).   

Rafal Kulik

Letter of Intention

“The Board of Governors is responsible for the University's overall governance and management. In practical terms, the Board makes the financial decisions and implements the policies and procedures that the University needs to operate efficiently”.  

In particular, the Board has several standing committees, including the Finance and Treasury Committee. It “has budgetary and financial oversight responsibilities for the University as well as an oversight responsibility for the Long Term Portfolio, its Treasury investments, and its liability structure”.  

Given the current financial situation of the University of Ottawa, we can expect a new wave of budget cuts and so-called “optimization of resources and services”. The Deans and Chairs of departments have been asked to do budget cuts in the past few years. As a Chair, I was asked to cut 5% of my budget, even though 99% of the budget is allocated to APTPUO-hiring or TA support. The simple math tells us that we need to cut the latter items, even though the number of students increased significantly in the past few years. As the University community we can also see what the “optimization of resources” means. The disastrous roll-out of Workday is the tip of the iceberg.

As such, as a researcher and teacher, I certainly worry that the next round of budget cuts and “optimization of resources” may significantly affect teaching, students’ experience and ability to conduct research to our fullest potential. As such, I believe, it is fundamental that the Finance and Treasury Committee includes members of the academic staff. Yet, at this moment, there is no representative of the academic staff on the Committee.    

I believe I have the expertise to review annual budgets, evaluate the University’s periodical financial forecasts and monitor year-to-date spending (time series forecasting is one of my research subjects). Furthermore, if elected, I will evaluate and question “optimization of resources” decisions. I believe I have a significant experience as a teacher, researcher and administrator to do so.