It is with sadness that we share the news of the passing of Charles Jasper Saunders (MA Carleton, 2011 and PhD Carleton, 2015) on December 21st, 2023. He is survived by his loving wife Mary (née Camelon) and his two sons, Charles and William, numerous family, friends, and colleagues.
We in the Department of Economics recall Charles’ beaming and jovial demeanor. He was also a brilliant econometrician, and an active alumnus. We extend our condolences to his family and friends during this difficult time.
Professor Lynda Khalaf was his MA and PhD thesis supervisor and friend and remembers him fondly. In her own words:
I received a phone call one day from Informetrica, so I picked up the phone. It was Charles. He was consulting with me about his MA progression, and in a somewhat unusual way, I thought he had a hidden question. So I directly said: “Charles, if you are asking whether I would accept to supervise you if you decided to write an MA thesis, then of course the answer is yes”! He answered with his usual laugh, which sealed the deal. I never expected that we would end up with three publications, one in the International Journal of Forecasting, and two in the Journal of Econometrics, and a SSHRC grant, following a great adventure through MA and PhD.
Through all of this, working with Charles was so special. He was never anxious, never frustrated and never upset, no matter what we had to redo or rethink or re-simulate, or debug. He had creative answers to all questions, that made me revisit many long-held assumptions and venture onto more daring paths than my usual conservative ones. Long days of work were much more fun than hard work. We shared many jokes: about pouring coffee on a paper for good luck which is Charles’s interpretation of a Lebanese proverb that I translated to him once; about our “understanding bosses”, that is, his wife Mary and my husband Jihad, who allowed us to work on December 24 and 31st because of a submission deadline; and about the “ghost” who hooded him at his Carleton graduation, that is, me (barely 5 feet) trying to slide the hood through … the only thing I could see from the podium was his wife and boys laughing so hard since it seems that the hood just flew in and landed on Charles while I was totally invisible behind him.
At Carleton, Charles was the example of excellence, reliability and kindness. He was generous with help for everyone – professor or student – who consulted him about some difficult econometric problem, and for many students, he was the role model and the example of a rock that nothing – exams, job market searches, etc. – can shatter. My PhD graduates are pouring in with messages of shock, those who studied with him, or those who met him after his graduation (Anand and his wife Kusum, Olena, Abdallah, Zhenjiang, Haowei). I still feel that Charles is in London Ontario and will soon write to me with New Year greetings.
I will miss him. My condolences to Charles family and friends.
Marcel C. Voia served as one of Charles’ PhD committee members, and later a colleague and friend to Charles, and Kim P. Huynh (colleague and friend) also remember Charles with great fondness. In their own words:
It is with sadness and shock that we learnt that Charles passed away suddenly on 21 December 2023. We will miss him greatly as a colleague and friend. We could always count on Charles for his commitment, diligence, enthusiasm, insight, and wise counsel. We acknowledged those traits with the refrain of “It was Charles!”
Charles came to the graduate program at Carleton with research and policy experience at Infometrica and already a father of young children with his wife Mary. He dived into his studies and research with his usual gusto. His MA thesis was published in the International Journal of Forecasting while two chapters of his PhD thesis were published in the Journal of Econometrics.
These destinations were made more enjoyable with the research journey at many conferences, seminars, and workshops. Charles was an active and positive contributor in all respects. Charles worked hard and he played hard. The various pictures are a glimpse into these journeys.
Charles’ transition to faculty member was easy one as he already undertook many of the responsibilities during his graduate studies. Against this background, we knew that Charles had health issues. However, he wanted (us) to focus on living life to its fullest – carpe diem.
We will miss him immensely and offer our condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.
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2022 Canadian Economic Association Meetings at Carleton University. From left to right: Kim P. Huynh, Charles Saunders, Robert Petrunia, Marcel Voia, Frances Woolley. {Photo by Kim P. Huynh} |
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| 2015 International Panel Data Conference Budapest. From left to right: Marcel Voia, Vistoria Rilstone, Paul Rilstone, Charles Saunders.
{Photo by Kim P. Huynh} |
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2022 Department of Economics First Annual Alumni Networking Mixer. Charles Saunders (left) and Professor Lynda Khalaf (right). {Photo by Jeffery Poissant, FPA} |
2017 International Panel Data Conference Thessaloniki. From left to right: Robert Petrunia, Charles Saunders, Marcel Voia.
{Photo by Kim P. Huynh} |
Charles Saunders’ obituary can be found here. Friends and colleagues are welcome to leave memories of Charles on that site for his family to read. His family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the University of Ottawa Heart Institute.
Find a selection of Charles’ publications here:
- Lynda Khalaf, Maral Kichian, Charles J Saunders, and Marcel Voia. Dynamic panels with MIDAS covariates: Nonlinearity, estimation and fit. Journal of Econometrics, 220(2):589–605, 2021.
- Lynda Khalaf and Charles J. Saunders. Monte Carlo forecast evaluation with persistent data. International Journal of Forecasting, 33(1):1–10, 2017.
- Lynda Khalaf and Charles J. Saunders. Monte Carlo two-stage indirect inference (2SIF) for autoregressive panels. Journal of Econometrics, 218(2):419–434, 2020.