Archive for University of California Berkeley
Bin Yu’s seminar on understanding deep learning models via interaction importance at Warwick [B3.03, 2-3pm, Wed 10 Jun]
Posted in Statistics, Travel, University life with tags Bin Yu, biography, colloquium, CRiSM, deep learning, faithfulness, interaction importance, LLMs, National Academy of Sciences, predictivity, reasoning metric, University of California Berkeley, University of Warwick on June 10, 2026 by xi'an
j-ISBA Blackwell-Rosenbluth Award²⁶ [call reposted]
Posted in Statistics with tags Arianna Rosenbluth, Blackwell-Rosenbluth Award, David Blackwell, Harvard University, ISBA, j-ISBA, Junior Bayes Beyond the Borders, Los Alamos Research Laboratory, MANIAC, Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm, Metropolis algorithm, University of California Berkeley on May 15, 2026 by xi'anCall for award nominations
Dear all,
It is with great pleasure that we announce the Blackwell-Rosenbluth Award by j-ISBA, a recently established award for junior researchers in different areas of Bayesian statistics. The award aims at recognizing outstanding junior Bayesian researchers based on their overall contribution to the field and to the community. There will be six winners in total who will be invited to present their work in two special events of the Junior Bayes Beyond the Borders (JB^3) webinar series and receive three years of free ISBA and j-ISBA membership.
ISBA proudly has a wide geographical diversity among its members. To encourage scientific exchange and strengthen research connections between geographies, three prizes will be awarded to researchers based in time zones UTC+0 to UTC+13 [e.g. Africa + Asia + Europe + Oceania] and three to those based in UTC-12 to UTC-1 [e.g. North America + South America]. We welcome nominations of junior researchers working in the broad spectrum of topics in Bayesian statistics, including but not limited to methods, theory, computation, machine learning, data science, biostatistics, econometrics, industrial statistics, environmental science, and software.
There will be two scientific committees: one representing UTC- and the other representing UTC+, each consisting of members from their respective regions based on their professional affiliations. These committees are tasked with evaluating candidates for the award. The UTC- committee will evaluate submissions from UTC+ and vice versa.
Why Blackwell-Rosenbluth
The award is named after David H. Blackwell and Arianna W. Rosenbluth for their groundbreaking works that lie at the foundation of modern Bayesian statistical theory and computation. They represent important role models for new researchers in Bayesian statistics.
David Harold Blackwell
Born on April 24, 1919, Blackwell excelled in mathematics from an early age. He earned his doctoral degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under the supervision of Joseph L. Doob in 1941. He had a distinguished career, becoming a founding member in 1955 of the newly established Department of Statistics at University California, Berkeley. In 1965, he became the first African American to be elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and was awarded the John von Neumann Theory Prize in 1979. In addition to his seminal contributions to Bayesian inference, decision theory, game theory, sequential analysis and renewal theory, he also wrote one of the first textbooks in Bayesian statistics (Basic Statistics, McGraw-Hill, 1969).
Arianna Wright Rosenbluth
Born on September 15, 1927, Arianna Wright Rosenbluth showed an affinity for sciences from early childhood. She completed her doctoral work under the supervision of a future Nobel Laureate, John Van Vleck, in 1949, making her the fifth woman to earn a Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard. Later, as a coauthor of the seminal 1953 paper introducing the Metropolis algorithm, Rosenbluth almost single-handedly implemented the algorithm on the MANIAC I hardware at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. This made her the first person to ever implement the Markov chain Monte Carlo method when sophisticated programming tools were still years away, and the program had to be written in strings of 1’s and 0’s.
Eligibility and Application Procedure
Ph.D. students or early career researchers who obtained their PhD after January 1, 2021 are eligible for nomination. Candidates who were nominated in previous years may be nominated again if they received their Ph.D. after January 1, 2021. In exceptional cases, applicants who are more than five years past their Ph.D. may still be considered if they experienced a significant career break within five years of earning their degree (such as breaks due to illness, caring for a sick family member, pregnancy-related leave, or parental leave). Candidates may inquire about their eligibility, particularly if they have taken career breaks, by sending an email to jisba.section@gmail.com. A nomination may come from any ISBA member, including the nominee themselves. A nomination is to be submitted electronically and should contain:
- Nominating letter in support of the candidate
- CV of the candidate
- One manuscript or alternate form of exposition (e.g. software documentation) of scientific work most representative of the nominee’s achievements; the submitted work should also be available as publication or in a public repository such as arXiv, bioRxiv, CRAN, Bioconductor or GitHub.
Timeline
Nominations for the 2026 award edition are now open! Deadline to submit is July 12, 2026
congrats, Doctor Luciano!
Posted in Books, Kids, Statistics, University life with tags ABC, Bayesian computation, Gibbs sampling, insufficient statistic, mad, Paris, permABC, PhD thesis, postdoctoral position, Université Paris Dauphine, University of California Berkeley on January 23, 2026 by xi'an
postdoctoral research positions at PariSanté
Posted in pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags #ERCSyG, ABC, Bayesian decision theory, data privacy, ERC, ERC Synergy Grant, European Research Council, federated learning, French universities, game theory, MCMC, multi-agent decision theory, Ocean, Paris, PariSanté campus, postdoctoral position, recommendation, Université Paris Dauphine, University of California Berkeley, University of Warwick on March 7, 2024 by xi'an
Thanks to the 2023-2029 ERC Synergy grant OCEAN (On intelligenCE And Networks: Synergistic research in Bayesian Statistics, Microeconomics and Computer Sciences), I am seeking one or two postdoctoral researchers with an interest in Bayesian federated learning, distributed MCMC, approximate Bayesian inference and computing, and data privacy.
The project is based at Université Paris Dauphine, on the new PariSanté Campus. The postdocs will join the OCEAN teams of researchers directed by Éric Moulines and myself (Christian P Robert) to work on the above themes with multiple possibilities of focus from statistical theory, to Bayesian methodology, to decision theory, to algorithms, to medical applications. Collaborations with the OCEAN teams of researchers directed by Michael Jordan (Berkeley) and Gareth Roberts (Warwick) will further be encouraged and related travel will be supported.
Qualifications
The candidates should hold a doctorate in applied maths, statistics or machine learning, with demonstrated skills in Bayesian analysis, game theory, Monte Carlo methodology or numerical probability, an excellent record of publications in these domains, and an interest in working as part of an interdisciplinary international team. Scientific maturity and research autonomy are a must for applying. There is no deadline for the positions, which will be filled when a suitable candidate is selected.
Funding
Besides a 2 year postdoctoral contract at Université Paris Dauphine (with possible extension for another year), at a salary of 31K€ per year, the project will fund travel to OCEAN partners’ institutions (University of Warwick or University of Berkeley) and participation to yearly summer schools and conferences. Standard French university benefits are attached to the position and no teaching duty is involved, as per ERC rules.
The starting date of the postdoctoral positions is negotiable depending on the applicants’ availability.
Application Procedure
- To apply, please send the following entries in one pdf file to Christian Robert (bayesianstatistics@gmail.com).
- a letter of application,
- a CV,
Letters of recommendation are to be sent directly by their author.
postdoctoral research position
Posted in Statistics, Travel, University life with tags #ERCSyG, ABC, Bayesian decision theory, data privacy, ERC, ERC Synergy Grant, European Research Council, federated learning, MCMC, multi-agent decision theory, Ocean, Paris, PariSanté campus, postdoctoral position, Université Paris Dauphine, University of California Berkeley, University of Warwick on April 27, 2023 by xi'anThrough the ERC Synergy grant OCEAN (On intelligenCE And Networks: Synergistic research in Bayesian Statistics, Microeconomics and Computer Sciences), I am seeking one postdoctoral researcher with an interest in Bayesian federated learning, distributed MCMC, approximate Bayesian inference, and data privacy.
The project is based at Université Paris Dauphine, on the new PariSanté Campus. The postdoc will join the OCEAN teams of researchers directed by Éric Moulines and Christian Robert to work on the above themes with multiple focus from statistical theory, to Bayesian methodology, to algorithms, to medical applications.
Qualifications
The candidate should hold a doctorate in statistics or machine learning, with demonstrated skills in Bayesian analysis and Monte Carlo methodology, a record of publications in these domains, and an interest in working as part of an interdisciplinary international team. Scientific maturity and research autonomy are a must for applying.
Funding
Besides a 2 year postdoctoral contract at Université Paris Dauphine (with possible extension for one year), at a salary of 31K€ per year, the project will fund travel to OCEAN partners’ institutions (University of Warwick or University of Berkeley) and participation to yearly summer schools. University benefits are attached to the position and no teaching duty is involved, as per ERC rules.
The postdoctoral work will begin 1 September 2023.
Application Procedure
To apply, preferably before 31 May, please send the following in one pdf to Christian Robert (bayesianstatistics@gmail.com).
- a letter of application,
- a CV,
- letters of recommendation sent directly by recommenders
