His methodological contributions in multivariate analysis and extreme-value theory found numerous practical applications in finance, insurance, and hydrology.

[2] Throughout his career, Genest also made significant contributions to the development of techniques for the reconciliation and use of expert opinions and pairwise comparison methods used to establish priorities in multiple-criteria decision analysis.

His thesis, entitled "Towards a Consensus of Opinion",[5] 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.

[6] After completing his PhD, Christian Genest was a postdoctoral fellow and visiting assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) in 1983–84.

He joined McGill University (Montréal, QC) in 2010, where he holds a Canada Research Chair in Stochastic Dependence Modeling.

[9] In 2011, the Statistical Society of Canada awarded him its most prestigious distinction, the gold medal, "in recognition of his remarkable contributions to multivariate analysis and nonparametric statistics, notably through the development of models and methods of inference for studying stochastic dependence, synthesizing expert judgments and multi-criteria decision making, as well as for his applications thereof in various fields such as insurance, finance, and hydrology.