Pierre Dutilleul’s background is in mathematics and statistics, and his research interests are in statistical inference (estimation and testing) and applied statistics, the domains of application including plant science, ecology and the environmental sciences, agronomy and crop science, forestry and dendrochronology, soil science and seismology. Accordingly, he is Professor in the Department of Plant Science and Associate Member of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and of the McGill School of Environment. In Google Scholar, Dr. Dutilleul is most known (600+ citations) for his modified t-test for correlation analysis with spatial data. Professor Dutilleul is also known for his innovative phytometric research work, in which his group is making use of a computed tomography (CT) scanner to collect 3-D spatial data on plant structures and analyzing them statistically (see, e.g., his interview to the Science magazine in February 2006 and the Radio-Canada Découverte reportage made in February 2007); this work has since been extended to the studies of soil and wood structures. Pierre Dutilleul has authored ~150 peer-reviewed publications and one book (“Spatio-Temporal Heterogeneity”, Cambridge University Press, 2011) and has coordinated from beginning to end the e-book project “Branching and Rooting Out with a CT Scanner” (Nature Publishing Group/Macmillan, 2016).

 My research work in this area has started before that, via the search and finding of an improved quantification of the structural complexity of crop canopies (e.g. Foroutan-pour et al., 2001), but it was really boosted with the creation of the CT Scanning Laboratory for agricultural and environmental research at Macdonald Campus of McGill, thanks to an NSERC Major Equipment grant (PI: Dutilleul) and the portion of a CFI grant (PI: Fortin) for the equipment of a computer room, both in 2000.