why should I pay $350 for an on-line conference?!

Last year, I was invited to the SIAM-CSE20 conference for a session on ABC, in München, and was about ready to leave when the conference was posponed for pandemic reasons. My hotel in Garching charged me the entire stay, Danke sehr!,  and I am uncertain about having been fully reimbursed for the reservation. The conference is taking place this year as an on-line meeting and I got re-invited. However, when trying to register, I found that the fees were the same as last year. And did not see the point, given the possibility of delivering a high quality virtual conference for free!, except to support SIAM. Hence withdrew my participation to the meeting, which was not particularly high on my list anyway… (On the same day I received another invitation for an Insurance conference, but they got me confused with my namesake!)

a postdoc with Christian Robert

[Here is another call for a postdoctoral position in Lyon, under the supervision of my homonym Christian Robert:]

Post-Doctoral Position in Data Science and Machine Learning

Chair Data Analytics and Models for Insurance – 2018–2020

DAMI is a research chair funded by BNP Paribas Cardif, and is interested in problems related to Data Science and Models for Insurance.

Description

A post-doctoral fellowship in the areas of data science and machine learning is available at the DAMI research chair at the Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University. The post-doctoral fellow, in collaboration with the industry partner, will conduct research of advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms for actuarial sciences and insurance, and in particular, for improving risk-based pricing, and for developing predictive analytics.

The position is for one year (possibly two years), starting in September/October 2018.

Required Professional Expertise

–        A recent PhD (received within the past 5 years) in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Applied Statistics and Mathematics, or related fields.

–        Excellent research capabilities and competitive development skills

–        Strong knowledge/expertise in machine learning and data analytics including data pre-processing, model building, and model evaluation

–        Experience with Python and/or R

Interested candidates are invited to submit their CV, list of publications, and contact information of two references to Christian ROBERT at univ-lyon1.fr.