Wilk's first degree was a BS in chemical engineering from McGill U in 1945. For five years he worked as a chemical engineer. He then studied statistics at ISU, obtaining his MS in 1953 and his PhD in 1955 (supervised by Kempthorne). Wilk was co-author of the 1965 paper that introduced the Shapiro–Wilk test. After teaching at Rutgers U, he joined AT&T. In 1981 he was appointed Chief Statistician of Statistics Canada (the Canadian government's central statistics office). Subsequently he was an adjunct Professor at Carleton U, Ottawa. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the RSS in 1986. He was President of the SSC in 1986 and was elected an Honorary Member in 1988.

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