Summer School on Bayesian Statistics in Freiburg

As in the last years, we organize a course in Bayesian statistics this summer. See invitation below, feel free to distribute widely.

3^rd International Summer School

An Introduction to Bayesian Modeling for Ecologists

in Freiburg (Germany) 28^th July to 2^nd August 2013

 

Motivation

Bayesian inference is an increasingly used statistical framework in ecology, but it is still rarely taught within the standard curriculum. This course provides a practical introduction to Bayesian inference for students, graduate students, and early-stage researchers. Our goal in teaching this course is that you will be able to apply Bayesian methods to a wide range of typical statistical problems in ecological research.

 

Lecturers

Florian Hartig, University of Freiburg

Jörn Pagel, University of Potsdam / Université Montpellier II

Joseph Chipperfield, University of Trier

 

Content

The content of the course will include:

• Introduction to concepts of Bayesian statistics (Priors, Likelihoods, etc.)
• Sampling methods (e.g. Markov Chain Monte Carlo)
• Bayesian modeling and hierarchical Bayesian models
• The Bugs model language and its implementations such as JAGS and OpenBugs

 

The course will consist of lectures, practical exercises (with R and JAGS) and talks on advanced topics in Bayesian statistics. Course language will be English. If necessary, we can provide certificates with ECTS credits from the University of Freiburg. This is a introductory course, but a basic knowledge of conventional statistics as well competency in R or another programming language will be highly beneficial to profit from this course and will also be considered for selecting the participants.

 

Venue and course fees

The course will take place at the “Unihaus”, a small university guest house in the beautiful mountainous surroundings of Freiburg in Southern Germany. There will be a course fee of 280 Euros for PhD students and higher, and a reduced rate of 230 Euros for students, which covers a basic accommodation in dormitories and all meals, except for beverages which have to be purchased on site. Please plan to arrive in Freiburg on the afternoon of Sunday, 28^th July. The course will finish on Friday, 2^nd August, at lunchtime.

 

How to apply

To apply for the course, please send an email with your contact details, a brief summary of your research interests and motivation for attending this course (max 150 words), and an indication of your experience with R/programming/statistics by 20^th May to joern.pagel@uni-potsdam.de. After this date, we will make the initial selection and subsequent applications will be admitted onto the course on a first-come first-served basis until all places are filled.