 He was trained as a mathematician at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (B.Sp.Sc., 1977) and at the Université de Montréal (M.Sc., 1978) before completing graduate studies in statistics at the University of British Columbia (Ph.D., 1983).His thesis, entitled "Towards a Consensus of Opinion", was written under the supervision of James V. Zidek and earned him the Pierre Robillard Award from the Statistical Society of Canada (SSC) in 1984.After completing his PhD, Christian Genest was a postdoctoral fellow and visiting assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) in 1983–84.