The Departments of Biostatistics and Statistics are pleased to announce the first year of joint seminars between the two departments to encourage collaboration and networking, as well as a greater sense of cross-river community. This year, the Statistics Department will host Biostatistics colleagues in the fall semester, and the Biostatistics Department will host Statistics colleagues in the spring semester.
The first lecture will take place on:
Monday, November 30, 2015
Science Center Building, Hall E
Harvard University, Cambridge
Robert E. Kass, Professor of Statistics
Department of Statistics & Machine Learning
Carnegie Melon University
Lecture Begins at 4:15pm
Pre-Lecture Coffee Reception at 3:50pm
Abstract: Experimenters are typically adept at applying standard statistical techniques, while computational neuroscientists are capable of formulating mathematically sophisticated data analytic methods to attack novel problems in data analysis. Yet, in many situations, statisticians proceed differently than those without formal training in statistics. What is different about the way statisticians approach problems? I will give you my thoughts on this subject, and will illustrate with examples, one of which involves a new extension of Bayesian control of false discoveries, applied to neural synchrony detection across a network of interacting spiking neurons. I will conclude with some related comments on scientific reproducibility.