The AstroStat Slog

via David van Dyk, information about 3 events in astrostatistics hosted by Penn State’s Center for Astrostatistics:

1. Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers VII (June 6-10, 2011)
2. Pre-conference Tutorials (June 11-12, 2011)
3. Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy V (June 13-17, 2011)*

*Web site: http://astrostatistics.psu.edu/su11scma5/

Registration is now open until May 6
(Summer School registration may close earlier if the enrollment limit is reached)

Contributed papers for the SCMA V conference are welcome

Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers: The seventh summer school is an intensive week covering basic statistical inference, several fields of applied statistics, and hands-on experience with the R computing environment. Topics include: exploratory data analysis, hypothesis testing, parameter estimation, regression, bootstrap resampling, model selection & goodness-of-fit, maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods, nonparametrics, spatial processes, and times series. Instructors are mostly faculty members in statistics.

Pre-conference tutorials: Instruction in four areas of astrostatistical interest presented during the weekend between the Summer School and SCMA V conference. Topics are: Bayesian computation and MCMC; data mining; R for astronomers; and wavelets for image analysis. Instructors are members of the SCMA V Scientific Organizing Committee.

SCMA V conference: Held every five years, SCMA conferences are the premier cross-disciplinary forum for research statisticians and astronomers to discuss methodological issues of mutual interest. Session topics include: statistical modeling in astronomy, Bayesian analysis across astronomy; Bayesian cosmology; data mining and informatics; sparsity; interpreting astrophysical simulations; time domain astronomy; spatial and image analysis; and future directions for astrostatistics. Invited lectures will be followed by cross-disciplinary commentaries. The conference welcomes contributed papers from statisticians and astronomers.

Visit http://astrostatistics.psu.edu/su11scma5/ for more information and registration

Contacts:
Eric Feigelson, Dept. of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Penn State,á edf@astro.psu.edu
G. Jogesh Babu, Dept. of Statistics, Penn State, babu@stat.psu.edu