1. Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers VII (June 6-10, 2011)
2. Pre-conference Tutorials (June 11-12, 2011)
3. Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy V (June 13-17, 2011)*

*Web site: http://astrostatistics.psu.edu/su11scma5/

Registration is now open until May 6
(Summer School registration may close earlier if the enrollment limit is reached)

Contributed papers for the SCMA V conference are welcome

Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers: The seventh summer school is an intensive week covering basic statistical inference, several fields of applied statistics, and hands-on experience with the R computing environment. Topics include: exploratory data analysis, hypothesis testing, parameter estimation, regression, bootstrap resampling, model selection & goodness-of-fit, maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods, nonparametrics, spatial processes, and times series. Instructors are mostly faculty members in statistics.

Pre-conference tutorials: Instruction in four areas of astrostatistical interest presented during the weekend between the Summer School and SCMA V conference. Topics are: Bayesian computation and MCMC; data mining; R for astronomers; and wavelets for image analysis. Instructors are members of the SCMA V Scientific Organizing Committee.

SCMA V conference: Held every five years, SCMA conferences are the premier cross-disciplinary forum for research statisticians and astronomers to discuss methodological issues of mutual interest. Session topics include: statistical modeling in astronomy, Bayesian analysis across astronomy; Bayesian cosmology; data mining and informatics; sparsity; interpreting astrophysical simulations; time domain astronomy; spatial and image analysis; and future directions for astrostatistics. Invited lectures will be followed by cross-disciplinary commentaries. The conference welcomes contributed papers from statisticians and astronomers.

Visit http://astrostatistics.psu.edu/su11scma5/ for more information and registration

Contacts:
Eric Feigelson, Dept. of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Penn State, edf@astro.psu.edu
G. Jogesh Babu, Dept. of Statistics, Penn State, babu@stat.psu.edu

First Announcement

Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers VI
June 7-12, 2010
with a supplement on Statistics and Computation for Astronomical Surveys
June 12-14, 2010
Registration Deadline: May 3, 2010 or when the enrollment limit reaches.
Penn State University

http://astrostatistics.psu.edu/su10/

The sixth annual Penn State Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers will be held at Penn State. The main part of the School is a 6-day course (June 7-12, 2010) in fundamental statistical inference designed to provide researchers and graduate students in the physical sciences with a strong conceptual foundation in modern statistics. We develop a repertoire of well-established techniques applicable to observational astronomy and physics. Classroom instruction is interspersed with hands-on analysis of astronomical data using the open-source R software package. The course is taught by a team of statistics and astronomy professors with opportunity for discussion of methodological issues. The program starts on Monday morning (June 7, 2010), and ends on Saturday June 12, 2010 at noon. The topics covered include:

* Exploratory data analysis
* Hypothesis testing and parameter estimation
* Regression
* Bootstrap resampling
* Model selection & goodness-of-fit
* Maximum likelihood methods & Bayes’ Theorem
* Non-parametric methods
* Monte Carlo methods
* Poisson processes
* Time series

The 2010 Summer School will be modeled on the last four Penn State Summer Schools and the two Indian Institute of Astrophysics-Penn State Summer School; see 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 lecture notes for the Penn State Summer Schools.

This is immediately followed by a supplementary program (June 12-14, 2010) on Statistics and Computation for Astronomical Surveys. This program starts on Saturday June 12 immediately following the main school and ends on Monday June 14 at noon. Statistical topics covered will include:

* Number count distributions (“logN-logS”) and the fundamental equation of stellar statistics
* Selection effects: truncation and censoring (Lynden-Bell, Kaplan-Meier product limit estimators)
* Classical survey biases (Eddington, Malmquist, Lutz-Kelker)
* Population modeling with hierarchical models
* Statistical cross-matching between surveys
* Introduction to Virtual Observatory software tools for querying and analyzing survey data

Participants may register for one or both programs. There is limited financial support for the program on astronomical surveys; requests for support should be sent to Tom Loredo (loredo, at astro.cornell.edu) by May 3.

Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers V
June 1-6, 2009
Penn State University
http://astrostatistics.psu.edu/su09/

The fifth annual Penn State Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers will be held at Penn State. This is a 6-day course in fundamental statistical inference designed to provide physical scientists, particularly young researchers in astronomy, with a strong conceptual foundation in modern statistics and to develop a repertoire of well-established techniques applicable to observational astronomy. Classroom instruction is interspersed with hands-on analysis of astronomical data using the public-domain R software package. The course is taught by a team of statistics and astronomy professors with opportunity for discussion of methodological issues.

Statistical techniques covered include:

* exploratory data analysis
* hypothesis testing and parameter estimation
* regression & confidence interval estimation
* model selection & goodness-of-fit
* maximum likelihood methods & Bayes’ Theorem
* non-parametric methods
* Monte Carlo methods
* Poisson processes
* time series analysis

INTERESTED PARTICIPANTS SHOULD REGISTER AT http://astrostatistics.psu.edu/su09/reg.html
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: May 1, 2009 (or when the enrollment limit reaches)
REGISTRATION FEE: $250.

The 2009 Summer School is organized by Penn State University’s Center for Astrostatistics. It will be modeled on the last four Penn State Summer Schools and the 2008 Indian Institute of Astrophysics-Penn State Summer School. See http://astrostatistics.psu.edu/ for past lecture notes. This Web site http://astrostatistics.psu.edu/su09/ also gives information on travel, lodging, and visas.

1. The 2 Megasecond Chandra observations of the Southern Deep Field, which have been processed, reduced, and mosaiced. (Coincidentally, just last week Peter Freeman had asked me for a nice dataset on which to try out spatial analysis algorithms, and for which some analysis already existed for people to check their results against. These were the data I recommended.)
2. HEASARC’s W3Browse gives direct access to archived data from various missions. The data products have been already processed in some standard way.
3. The Penn State Center for Astrostatistics maintains training datasets of various types
4. ADC, as pointed out by Brian

There are many more, I am sure, and if people find any particularly good ones, please point them out in the comments!

The Indian Institute of Astrophysics and the Center for Astrostatistics, Pennsylvania State University (USA) are jointly organising an 8-day school in fundamental statistical inference as applicable to astrophysical problems during 9-16 July, 2008 (www.iiap.res.in/astrostat). The school is intended for practising astrophysics researchers at all levels. Details may be found on the website of the school.

For details, email astrostat at iiap.res.in

You will have to get there on your own steam, but local expenses will be taken care of by IIAp. Deadline for applications is April 10.