Statistical analysis and machine learning workshop

A workshop entitled “Statistical analysis and machine learning with applications in medicine, biology, environmental sciences”, organized by Dr. Hong Gu, was held on May 9th and 10th at Dalhousie University. The workshop was co-sponsored by the CANSSI Maritime Statistical and Health Sciences Collaborating Centre the AARMS collaborative research group in Statistical Learning.

There were 15 researchers present for the entire workshop, including 8 faculty members, 2 postdoctoral fellows, 4 PhD students and 1 MSc student, coming from Acadia, MSVU, UPEI, MUN and Dalhousie.  In addition, several other Dalhousie faculty members and students attended some of the talks during the workshop.

The workshop covered a large range of different statistical methodologies including time series, hierarchical state-space models, missing values, measurement errors, phylogenetic comparative methods, biomarker detection and dynamic modelling using stochastic differential equations. There were also talks about open questions and data in marine microbial ecology.

The meeting proved very successful with researchers from diverse backgrounds presenting their questions and methods, as well as discussing possibilities for collaboration.  Several new projects and funding applications based on this workshop are under development.