EMS 2023, Warsaw

Francis Comets (1956-2022)

Francis Comets, with whom I taught at Polytechnique in the early 2000’s, and whom I highly respected, has most sadly died on June 6. Here is a eulogy written by Patrick Cattiaux, Giambattista Giacomin, and Lorenzo Zambotti, on the site of the Société Mathématique de France (translated from the French).

Francis was a rare person. Combining both a form of conformism and a surprising originality, he marked all those who knew him: colleagues, relatives, friends. A former student of the École Normale Supérieure de Saint Cloud, in 1987 he defended a Thèse d’État at the University of Paris Sud on problems of large deviations in connection with models of statistical physics. Very quickly he demonstrated his appetite for various fields combining probability, statistics and physics. Just check out his list of publications. Francis will remain as one of the pioneers in France in the study of models in random environments for which his contributions are internationally recognized, symbolized by the Ito prize from the Bernoulli Society received in 2015. Beyond a leading scientific activity, Francis has been for forty years a major player in the structuring of mathematics in France. First assistant at the University of Paris X, then Professor at Marne la Vallée and finally at Paris 7 (which over time became Paris Diderot and now Université Paris Cité), he has, during his academic career, spared no effort in serving the community. Director of the Laboratory of Probability and Random Models, co-founder of the Fondation Sciences Mathématiques de Paris, part-time professor at the École Polytechnique, he has devoted a very large part of his time to the French mathematical community. His students and his colleagues have found in Francis listening, empathy, competence and that hint of surprise that leads to curiosity. His friends and loved ones will express the deep and personal feelings that bound them to a rare being, as mentioned above. The French mathematical community joins in the grief of his family and friends at such a painful time.

Recent Advances in Approximate Bayesian Inference [YSE, 15.2.22]

On June 15, the Young Statisticians Europe initiative is organising an on-line seminar on approximate Bayesian inference. With talks by

• Lorenzo Pacchiardi, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
• Emilia Pompe, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
• Łukasz Rajkowski, University of Warsaw, Poland
• Théo Moins, Inria Grenoble Rhône-Alpes, France

starting at 7:00 PT / 10:00 EST / 16:00 CET. The registration form is available here.

the Bernoulli Society cancels EMS 2022

In reaction to the military aggression by the Russian Federation, the Executive Committee of the Bernoulli Society, in consultation with the European Regional Committee, has decided to cancel the European Meeting of Statisticians 2022 in Moscow. We appreciate the significant efforts that have been invested in the preparation of this meeting. We express our deepest sympathy and support to the Ukrainian people.

The Bernoulli Society has eventually opted for a full cancellation of the European Meeting of Statisticians this year. Rather than opting for reporting it to the next year, another location in Europe, or for moving on-line. The former would have been a weak statement against the Russian Federation invasion, the next a most challenging endeavour, and the later could have been feasible, as shown by the successful 2020 Bernoulli-IMS One World Symposium. (While rescuing some of the effort put by its program committee, incl. several friends of mine, in planning this top conference.)

[o-l] ISBA 2021 [百花齊放，百家爭鳴]

As usual, when looking for our ISBA World conference, ISBA [now] 2021, many alternative realities emerge, ISBA being such a popular acronym! The actual dates for the (true and only) ISBA 2021 conference are 28 June – 02 July and the location is no longer Kunming, China, since there is a pandemic going on!!! The conference is now on-line, which forces a complete rethinking of its organisation, away from a sheer replica on Zoom of the traditional conference. And with no registration fees!! I have agreed to join other ISBA members to contribute (with limited abilities) to this switch and obviously welcome comments towards it! Having greatly learned from the earlier experience with the One World Bernoulli+IMS conference last summer, thanks to the dedication and imagination of Leif Döring!, here are some line of thought:

• Keep in mind days are 24 hours long and attention span much smaller, towards keeping the offer manageable for a fully engaged participant
• Account and take advantage of the multiple time zones available to virtual participants to stretch the schedule to cover as many participants as possible, with a potential multiplication of (plenary) talks and posters
• Avoid filling the on-line schedule with live talks but have them pre-registered, possibly with several levels of length and depth, including a one-slide two-minute version
• Exploit on-line abilities to focus solely (?) on interactions, which is the main point of conferences, meaning participants joining for a thematic session over a reasonable duration to discuss talks or posters they had attended on their own before, with a catalyst leading the show with prepared questions
• Preregister poster presentations as well, so that live poster sessions involve only questions and discussions, and group poster by theme (an attempt of mine at the earlier ISBA conferences) so that presenters and visitors can interact at the theme level rather than being stuck in an empty room with one’s poster
• Create local mirrors when people could physically (safely!) gather to attend the conference, from watching videos and poster together to engage into a local plus virtual discussion during interaction sessions. I certainly plan to hold one such session in Paris [if there and not in Eindhoven on 28 June – 02 July]
• Find ways to engage participants to fully commit to the conference (see above), for instance by preparing a “I am away at ISBA 2021” card one could post on whatever social or asocial networks one favours (but maybe not as one’s vacation email automated reply, unless the card is a few bytes…)