postdoc at Warwick on robust SMC [call]

Here is a call for a research fellow at the University of Warwick to work with Adam Johansen and Théo Damoulas on the EPSRC and Lloyds Register Foundaton funded project “Robust Scalable Sequential Monte Carlo with application to Urban Air Quality”. To quote

The position will be based primarily at the Department of Statistics of the University of Warwick. The post holder will work closely in collaboration with the rest of the project team and another postdoctoral researcher to be recruited shortly to work within the Data Centric Engineering programme at the Alan Turing Institute in London. The post holder will be expected to visit the Alan Turing Institute regularly.

Candidates with strong backgrounds in the mathematical analysis of stochastic algorithms or sequential Monte Carlo methods are particularly encouraged to apply. Closing date is 19 Jan 2020.

HW AMS & EPSRC MAG-MIGS CDT seminar

Some explanation for all these acronyms! I am giving a Actuarial Mathematics & Statistics (AMS) seminar at Heriot-Watt (HW) University, in Edinburgh, tomorow. But in the (new) Bayes Centre, at the University of Edinburgh, rather than on the campus of Heriot-Watt, as this is also the launching day of the Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) on Mathematical Modelling, Analysis, & Computation (MAG) shared between Heriot-Watt, and the University of Edinburgh, funded by the EPSRC and located in the Maxwell Institute Graduate School (MIGS) in its Bayes Centre. My talk will be on ABC convergence and misspecification.

research position in Bristol

Christophe Andrieu is seeking a senior research associate (reference ACAD103715) at the University of Bristol to work on new approaches to Bayesian data science. The selected candidate would work with Prof. Christophe Andrieu (School of Mathematics) and Prof. Mark Beaumont (Life Science) on new approaches to tackle Bayesian inference in complex statistical models arising in particular in the area of Health Science, with a focus on genetics and/or epidemiological aspects. The position is associated with a £3M programme funded by EPSRC, Bayes4Health, and brings together research groups from the Universities of Lancaster, Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford and Warwick. Active collaboration across the partner institutions, other project partners and the programme grant CoSInES is expected. The position is for up to four years.

The position is for a duration of four years and interviews will take place in early October. Applicants with strong methodological and computational skills and are looking to put together a team of researchers with skills that cover theoretical, methodological and applied statistics should contact Christophe Andrieu at the earliest.

five postdoc positions in top UK universities & Bayesian health data science

The EPSRC programme New Approaches to Bayesian Data Science: Tackling Challenges from the Health Sciences, directed by Paul Fearnhead, is offering five 3 or 4 year PDRA positions at the Universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Lancaster, Oxford, and Warwick. Here is the complete call:

Salary:   £29,799 to £38,833
Closing Date:   Thursday 26 April 2018
Interview Date:   Friday 11 May 2018

We invite applications for Post-Doctoral Research Associates to join the New Approaches to Bayesian Data Science: Tackling Challenges from the Health Sciences programme. This is an exciting, cross-disciplinary research project that will develop new methods for Bayesian statistics that are fit-for-purpose to tackle contemporary Health Science challenges: such as real-time inference and prediction for large scale epidemics; or synthesizing information from distinct data sources for large scale studies such as the UK Biobank. Methodological challenges will be around making Bayesian methods scalable to big-data and robust to (unavoidable) model errors.

This £3M programme is funded by EPSRC, and brings together research groups from the Universities of Lancaster, Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford and Warwick. There is either a 4 or a 3 year position available at each of these five partner institutions.

You should have, or be close to completing, a PhD in Statistics or a related discipline. You will be experienced in one or more of the following areas: Bayesian statistics, computational statistics, statistical machine learning, statistical genetics, inference for epidemics. You will have demonstrated the ability to develop new statistical methodology. We are particularly keen to encourage applicants with strong computational skills, and are looking to put together a team of researchers with skills that cover theoretical, methodological and applied statistics. A demonstrable ability to produce academic writing of the highest publishable quality is essential.

Applicants must apply through Lancaster University’s website for the Lancaster, Oxford, Bristol and Warwick posts.  Please ensure you state clearly which position or positions you wish to be considered for when applying. For applications to the MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge vacancy please go to their website.

Candidates who are considering making an application are strongly encouraged to contact Professor Paul Fearnhead (p.fearnhead@lancaster.ac.uk), Sylvia Richardson (sylvia.richardson@mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk), Christophe Andrieu (c.andrieu@bristol.ac.uk), Chris Holmes (c.holmes@stats.ox.ac.uk) or Gareth Roberts (Gareth.O.Roberts@warwick.ac.uk) to discuss the programme in greater detail.

We welcome applications from people in all diversity groups.

 

advanced computational methods for complex models in Biology [talk]

Here are the slides of the presentation I gave at the EPSRC Advanced Computational methods for complex models in Biology at University College London, last week. Introducing random forests as proper summaries for both model choice and parameter estimation (with considerable overlap with earlier slides, obviously!). The other talks of that highly interesting day on computational Biology were mostly about ancestral graphs, using Wright-Fisher diffusions for coalescents, plus a comparison of expectation-propagation and ABC on a genealogy model by Mark Beaumont and the decision theoretic approach to HMM order estimation by Chris Holmes. In addition, it gave me the opportunity to come back to the Department of Statistics at UCL more than twenty years after my previous visit, at a time when my friend Costas Goutis was still there. And to realise it had moved from its historical premises years ago. (I wonder what happened to the two staircases built to reduce frictions between Fisher and Pearson if I remember correctly…)