Virtual Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers
June 2-6, 2025, Online
Details: https://sites.psu.edu/astrostatistics/su25/
Deadlines: Registration deadline is May 9, 2025
Overview: Penn State's Center for Astrostatistics is pleased to offer its 20th annual Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers. Taught by experienced faculty in statistics and astrostatistics, it provides a foundation in statistical inference, methods, and software within the context of problems arising in astronomical research. Topics include principles of probability and inference, regression and model selection, bootstrap resampling, supervised and unsupervised learning, Bayesian data analysis, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), nested sampling, time series analysis, spatial statistics, deep learning neural networks, Gaussian processes regression, and random forests. Extensive training in the public domain R statistical software environment is provided. Typical attendees are graduate students and young researchers, but others from undergraduates to senior researchers are welcome.
Stimulated by the enthusiastic world-wide participation in our Summer Schools conducted online during the Covid-19 pandemic, we will provide the 2025 school in an enhanced online format. The lectures will be pre-recorded and can be viewed by participants any hour of the day. They will be supplemented by synchronous Zoom events and Slack channels where participants can communicate with instructors and teaching assistants. Participants will also learn the R statistical software language through applications to astronomical problems via recorded tutorials and by independent work using Jupyter notebooks. Teaching assistants will be available to assist with R for a wide range of time zones. Asynchronous Slack channels will also be available to discuss the lectures, consult with astrostatisticians on individual participant’s research, and informally interact with other participants. Altogether, participants should expect to spend several hours per day – in their own time zones – working on the Summer School during the June 2-6 week.
Joint Statistical Meeting 2025 Astrostatistics Sessions
August 2-7, 2025
Nashville, TN
Details: https://ww2.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2025/
Astrostatistics sessions sponsored by the American Statistical Association’s Astrostatistics Interest Group at the Joint Statistical Meeting, JSM2025:
Sunday, August 3, 2-3:50pm
Astrostatistics Interest Group: Student Paper Award
Chair: David Stenning (Simon Fraser University)
Session organizer: Aarya Patil (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy)
Speakers and Titles of the Nominations for the Award:
J. Arturo Esquivel F. (University of Toronto): A data-driven approach to stellar flare detection
Phil Van-Lane (University of Toronto): ChronoFlow: A Data-Driven Model for Gyrochronology
Dayi Li (University of Toronto): Discovery of Two Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies with Unusually Bright Globular Cluster Luminosity Functions via a Mark-Dependently Thinned Point Process (MATHPOP)
Naomi Giertych (North Carolina State University): Prediction Intervals for Astronomy Data with Covariate Error
Amanda Cook (University of Toronto): Quantifying the Clustering Probability in Noisy Nonhomogeneous Spatial Data to identify New Repeating Fast Radio Burst Sources from CHIME/FRB.
Sunday, August 3 at 4pm-5:30pm
Advances in Time-Series Analysis for Astronomy's Big Data Era
Session organizer: Aarya Patil (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy).
Discussant: Chad Schafer (Carnegie Mellon University)
Speakers and Titles
Malgorzata Sobolewska (CfA): Detecting periodic signatures in red-noise dominated lightcurves of accreting black holes.
David Corliss (Grafham Analytics): Longitudinal Analysis of Sudden Behavioral Changes in Red Supergiants Betelgeuse and RW Cephei
Victor Verma (University of Michigan) On the optimal prediction of extreme events in heavy-tailed time-series with applications to solar flare forecasting
Vinay Kashyap (CfA) Solar and Stellar Flares: dealing with cyclic, stochastic, and cascading events
Wednesday, August 6 at 10:30am - 12:20pm
Contributed Poster Presentations: Astrostatistics Interest Group
Chair: Shirin Golchi (McGill University)
Speakers and Titles
Xiaoli Li (University of Chicago): Boosting C-statistics in Astronomy: Higher-order Asymptotics for Improved Goodness-of-fit Testing.
Massimiliano Bonamente (University of Alabama in Huntsville): Goodness of fit Statistics for the Regression of Integer-count Data with Systematic Errors.
Kevin Jin (University of Michigan): Leveraging Generative Models for Forecasting Solar Flares.
Joseph Salzer (University of Wisconsin): Searching for Exoplanets in Stellar Spectra: Embedding Techniques for Local Feature Shape Analysis.
sys2025: Systematic and Measurement Errors across the Sciences - Astrostatistics and Data Science
November 14-17, 2025
Gulf State Park, Al
Details: https://sites.google.com/uah.edu/sys2025/home?authuser=0
sys2025 is the second in a series of astrostatistics and data science workshops in the Southeastern part of the U.S. After the successful iid2022 workshop on count data in the Fall of 2022 at the Lake Guntersville State Park, sys2025 focuses on the topic of systematic errors. Systematic errors are everywhere across the sciences, yet they are often ill-defined or misunderstood, especially from a statistical point of view. This workshop aims to bring together data science practitioners --- from astronomy/physical sciences and other fields, such as biostatistics, econometrics and more --- with statisticians and machine-learning experts. The workshop is structured with a series of introductory review lectures from established professionals, and shorter presentations by participants of all levels of experience, with emphasis on participation of student and early-career participants, especially from traditionally underrepresented groups. The National Science Foundation EPSCoR program is expected to support the participation of students and early-career participants (see Registration for details).
The workshop is intended as an in-person meeting, with time for social interactions and networking. For those unable to travel, there is a remote participation option.
sys2025 will also offer an opportunity to publish peer-reviewed papers on the topic of systematic errors as part of a Research Topic for the journal Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Science/Astrostatistics. See the Program/Proceedings tab for more information.
STAMPS Seminar Series
STAtistical Methods for the Physical Sciences Research Center (STAMPS@CMU) launched the seminar series on September 20, 2024.
Talks are open to everyone who registers on the web site: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/statistics-datascience/stamps/events/webinars/index.html
IAU - IAA Astrostatistics and Astroinformatics Seminars
Monthly Virtual online
Details: https://sites.google.com/view/iau-iaaseminar-new/home
Schedule: https://sites.google.com/view/iau-iaaseminar-new/schedule?authuser=0
This international online seminar is an initiative of the International Astrostatistics Association and the IAU Astroinformatics and Astrostatistics Commission. It focuses on statistical analysis and data mining of astronomical data. The seminar is run on Zoom monthly on second Tuesdays alternating between Europe-America and Australasia-Europe time zone instances. The standard seminar times are 8:00 UTC and 16:00 UTC. Please check the exact time and time differences with your timezone.
Past Events
sys2025: Systematic Errors across the Sciences - Statistics and Data Science
Registration is now open for `sys2025: Systematic Errors across the Sciences - Statistics and Data Science', a workshop to be held at Gulf State Park lodge in Gulf Shores, AL, on March 28-31 (Friday through Monday), 2025. sys2025 is the second in a series of astrostatistics and data science workshops in the Southeastern U.S. After the successful iid2022 workshop on count data, sys2025 focuses on the topic of systematic errors. The workshop aims to bring together astronomers and data scientists across a range of diverse scientific interests, with statisticians and machine-learning experts, to discuss the theory, practice and implementation of methods for systematic errors. The workshop is expected to be sponsored by the NSF EPSCoR Workshop program. Accordingly, we expect to provide financial support for students and early-career scientists. Participation by students and early-career scientists, as well as traditionally underrepresented groups, is particularly encouraged.
Please visit https://sites.google.com/uah.edu/sys2025/home for more information, preliminary list of speakers, and for a link to registration.
Hotwiring the Transient Universe VII
May 13-16, 2024
Dunlap Institute at the University of Toronto
Details: https://www.dunlap.utoronto.ca/hotwired7/
Deadlines: Registration deadline: April 15, 2024 (or until full; there is capacity for 100 in-person attendees)
COSMO 21
May 20-24, 2024
Chania, Greece
Details: https://cosmo21.cosmostat.org/
Deadlines: Registration deadline: March 29, 2024 (or before if the maximum of 100 people is reached). While the registration deadline has already passed, we include this in our list so the AN readers are aware of the event for future reference.
Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers XIX
June 3-7 2024
Enhanced virtual online format through Penn State University
Details: https://sites.psu.edu/astrostatistics/su24/
Deadlines: Registration deadline is May 11, 2024.
Joint Statistical Meeting
Aug 3-8, 2024
Portland, OR
Details: https://ww2.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2024/
Deadlines: Submission of Topic-Contributed Session Proposals Nov 15-Dec 7, 2023; Abstract submission Dec 1, 2023 - Feb 1, 2024; Meeting and Event Request submissions Jan 25-Apr 4, 2024; Registration opens May 1, 2024
International Astrostatistics Association (IAA) Elections
Event dates: October 6-31, 2023
Event location: Online
Details: Only IAA members are allowed to vote. If you are an IAA member, you should have already received an email with a link to the voting system.
Deadlines: IAA members vote by October 31, 2023
The International Astrostatistics Association (IAA) is a global scientific association devoted to astrostatistics and astroinformatics with the goal to promote collaboration between astronomers, statisticians and computer scientists. Membership is free and open to any scientist interested in the statistical analysis of astronomical data. To apply for membership please visit the IAA website: http://iaa.mi.oa-brera.inaf.it/IAA/home.html
International Astronomical Union nominations for memberships
Details: IAU Individual or Junior memberships are open for nominations
Nominations open on: October 7, 2023
Nominations end on: December 15, 2023
10th Astronomical Data Analysis Summer School
September 18, 2023 - September 22, 2023
Hersonissos, Crete, Greece
Details: http://ada10.cosmostat.org/
Held regularly since 2001, the Astronomical Data Analysis (ADA) summer school has been focused on training early career researchers on the state-of-the-art in data analysis techniques and tools for astrophysics.
Deadline: April 30, 2023
Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers XVIII
June 5-9, 2023
Center for Astrostatistics, Pennsylvania State University
Details: https://sites.psu.edu/astrostatistics/su23/
Deadline: May 5, 2023
Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy VIII
June 12-16, 2023
Center for Astrostatistics, Pennsylvania State University
Details: http://scma8.org
Deadlines: Abstract submission deadline was Feb 1, 2023, Final program will be announced Mar 15, 2023
Summer School in AstroStatistics in Crete
June 19-23, 2023
Department of Physics, University of Crete, Heraklion
Details: http://astro.physics.uoc.gr/Conferences/Astrostatistics_School_Crete_2023/
Deadline: Mar 24, 2023
Note: the deadline has passed, but this event may be of interest in future years.
Statistics for Astronomy
Session 312 at the 64th ISI World Statistics Congress in Ottawa 2023
July 19, 2023
Ottawa, Canada
Details: https://www.isi2023.org/
Session Details: https://www.isi2023.org/conferences/session/312/details/
Early registration deadline is on April 17, 2023
Six Astrostatistics Sessions at the ASA JSM2023
True North Strong and…Amazing at Astrostatistics! (D. Stenning)
Astronomers Speak Statistics (J.G. Babu)
Modeling techniques for astrostatistical datasets (J. Williams)
Pulling Signal out of Noise for Data-Driven Discoveries in Astronomy (H. Tak)
Uncertainty Quantification in Astronomy (A. Siemiginowska)
Finalists of the Best Student Papers in Astrostatistics Competition (H. Tak)
August 5-10, 2023
Toronto, Canada
Conference Details: https://ww2.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2023/
The program will be announced in May 2023.
Astromatic 2023
August 6-12, 2023
University of Montreal
Details: https://www.astro.umontreal.ca/astromatic/2023/
Summary from website: Astromatic 2023 is a week-long program to bring together a group of 15 outstanding undergraduate students interested in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and astrophysics from around the world in the vibrant city of Montreal. The program consists of lectures on these topics given by experts, followed by a hackathon and an exciting competition that fosters teamwork and creativity to develop a powerful project at the intersection of astrophysics and machine learning.
Deadline: April 15, 2023