Imperial postdoc in Bayesian nonparametrics

Here is another announcement for a post-doctoral position in London (UK) to work with Sarah Filippi. In the Department of Mathematics at Imperial College London. (More details on the site or in this document. Hopefully, the salary is sufficient for staying in London, if not in South Kensington!)

The post holder will work on developing a novel Bayesian Non-Parametric Test for Conditional Independence. This is at the core of modern causal discovery, itself of paramount importance throughout the sciences and in Machine Learning. As part of this project, the post holder will derive a Bayesian non-parametric testing procedure for conditional independence, scalable to high-dimensional conditioning variable. To ensure maximum impact and allow experimenters in different fields to easily apply this new methodology, the post holder will then create an open-source software package available on the R statistical programming platform. Doing so, the post holder will investigate applying this approach to real-world data from our established partners who have a track record of informing national and international bodies such as Public Health England and the World Health Organisation.

lecturer position in Data Centric Engineering and Statistics, Imperial College London

My friend and Warwick colleague Mark Girolami sent me this announcement for a permanent Lecturer position at Imperial [College London], funded by his recent research chair by the Royal Academy of Engineering (congrats, Mark!). Deadline is April 13, so hurry up!!!

 

postdoc position in London plus Seattle

Here is an announcement from Oliver Ratman for a postdoc position at Imperial College London with partners in Seattle, on epidemiology and new Bayesian methods for estimating sources of transmission with phylogenetics. As stressed by Ollie, no pre-requisites in phylogenetics are required, they are really looking for someone with solid foundations in Mathematics/Statistics, especially Bayesian Statistics, and good computing skills (R, github, MCMC, Stan). The search is officially for a Postdoc in Statistics and Pathogen Phylodynamics. Reference number is NS2017189LH. Deadline is April 07, 2018.

another instance of a summer of Bayesian conferences

As it happens, the next MaxEnt conference will happens in London, on 2-6 July, at the Alan Turing Institute, which makes it another perfect continuation of the ISBA meeting in Edinburgh, or of the Computational Statistics summer school in Warwick the week after. But in competition with BAYsm in Warwick and MCqMC in Rennes. I once attended a MaxEnt meeting in Oxford. (Oxford, Mississippi!) Which was quite interesting in the audience it attracted and the focus of the discussions, some of which were exhilaratingly philosophical!

Der Kunst ihre Freiheit [and the scare of the nude]

A poster campaign advertising for several exhibits of modernist painters in Vienna, including major paintings by Egon Schiele, has met with astonishing censoring from the transport companies posting these advertisements. (And by Facebook, which AIs are visibly too artificial and none too intelligent to [fail to] recognise well-known works of art.) Not very surprising, given the well-known conservatism of advertising units in transportation companies, but nonetheless appalling, especially when putting these posters against the truly indecent ones advertising for, e.g., gas guzzling machines and junk food.

Dan Leno & the Limehouse Golem [book review]

Another book that came to my bedside rather randomly! It is in fact a 1994 book by Peter Ackroyd, not to be confused with Roger Ackroyd, a mystery book by Agatha Christie I remember reading in my teenage years! And takes place in Victorian London, around a woman Elisabeth Cree, who is a music hall celebrity and stands accused of murdering her husband. With the background of a series of gratuitous and inexplicable murders soon attributed to a supernatural creature. Called a golem for its ability to appear and vanish with no witness… There is a great idea in the plot but its implementation is quite tedious, with a plodding style that makes the conclusion a very long wait. This is not helped by Ackroyd borrowing so much from the life of a few well-known historical characters like Karl Marx, George Gissing, Dan Leno and Charles Babbage himself! Simply because they truly existed does not make these characters particularly exciting within the plot. Especially Babbage and his difference engine. (Which was exploited in a much better steampunk novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling!) The worst part is when Ackroyd reflects in the book on the engine being a “forerunner of the modern computer”, ruining the whole perspective. As I do not want to get into spoilers about the almost unexpected twists in the conclusion, let me conclude with quotes attributed to Babbage (or followers) about social statistics, for which he had devised the analytical engine.

“To be exactly informed about the lot of humankind (…) is to create the conditions in which it can be ameliorated. We must know before we can understand, and statistic evidence is the surest form of evidence currently in our possession.” (p.113)

“…the errors which arise from unsound reasoning neglecting true data are far more numerous and more durable than those which result from the absence of facts.” (p.119)

 

more positions in the UK [postdoc & professor]

I have received additional emails from England advertising for positions in Bristol, Durham, and London, so here they are, with links to the complete advertising!

1. The University of Bristol is seeking to appoint a number of Chairs in any areas of Mathematics or Statistical Science, in support of a major strategic expansion of the School of Mathematics. Deadline is December 4.
2. Durham University is opening a newly created position of Professor of Statistics, with research and teaching duties. Deadline is November 6.
3. Oliver Ratman, in the Department of Mathematics at Imperial College London, is seeking a Research Associate in Statistics and Pathogen Phylodynamics. Deadline is October 30.