NSF Award
2223560
The University of Alabama in Huntsville will organize and host a workshop on astrostatistics in November 2022. Event data are common across the quantitative sciences, from economics and social sciences, to physics, astronomy, biology and beyond. The workshop intends to bring together astronomers and other scientists for a first meeting dedicated entirely to statistics for integer–count event data. The workshop is structured in a format that includes introductory lectures, contributed presentations, and hands–on exercise activities, aimed at furthering the understanding and use of statistical methods for event data. The portion of the workshop costs funded by the NSF is primarily intended to facilitate the participation and attendance of early–career scientists and underrepresented minorities. The primary broader impact of this workshop is the training and development of young scientists in the area of statistical data analysis for astronomy, with an emphasis on the recruitment and support of participants from underrepresented groups.<br/><br/>This workshop has a two–fold motivation: (a) the training and engagement of young scientists in proper statistical methods for the analysis and interpretation of data; and (b) the gathering of scientists – both astronomers and in other related fields – to exchange recent advances in the statistics and analysis of event data. The workshop will cover thirteen main topics including general methods of statistical estimation, statistics for spatial analysis in astronomy, statistics for spectral data, statistics for temporal analysis of low count-rate data, and linear and non-linear methods of regression.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
