FORMAT:

Oral Papers:

• 1) (25 min) Our Invited Speaker, Professor Larry Wasserman, (Web page) a Statistician at Carnegie Mellon University, will give a selective overview of relevant advances in statistics in the past 25 years. His work has included applying modern nonparametric statistical methods to massive sky surveys, in collaboration with colleagues in Astrophysics and Computer Science at CMU. This will be at an introductory level, leaving many openings for discussion.
• 2) (50 min) Several Applications talks by astronomers from upcoming or recently launched missions or ground-based initiatives, including:
  • LIGO: Lee Samuel Finn, Penn State (Web page)
  • Chandra: Rostislav Protassav, David van Dyk, David Esch, Harvard University Statistics (Web page)
  • SIM: Tom Loredo, Cornell University ( Tom's web page, and the Baysian Inference in the Physical Sciences Web Page)
  • Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Bob Nichol, Astrophysics, Carnegie Mellon

• 3) (15 min) Visiting Statisticians and others to comment on the applications, and discuss the problems.
• 4) After the discussion period, we suggest continuing over break, during the ASSOCIATED POSTER SESSION , allowing yet more time for free-flowing or small-group discussions!

  Poster papers:

  • "Bayesian Analysis of the High-Energy Tail of Sigma Gem" E. Sourlas, Y. Yu, D. A. van Dyk, (Dept. of Statistics, Harvard University) V. L. Kashyap, J. J. Drake, (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) Abstract (text) Web page
  • "Detecting Multiple Model Components with the Likelihood Ratio Test" R. S. Protassov, D. A. van Dyk, (Dept. of Statistics, Harvard University) Abstract (text) Web page
  • "Bayesian Methods for RXTE's All Sky Monitor" A. Connors (Eureka Scientific), D.A. Smith (MIT CSR) Abstract (text) Web page
  • "Bayesian Imaging Techniques with Applications for the Chandra Telescope Data" D. Esch (Department of Statistics, Harvard University) Abstract (text) Web page
  • "Goodness-of-fit Testing of Low-Count Data using the Modified Chi-Square-Gamma Statistic" K. Mighell (KPNO/NOAO) Abstract (text) Web page
  • "Active Stellar Coronae: Lots of Little Flares?" J.J. Drake, V.L. Kashyap (SAO), M. Audard, M. Gudel (LA-PSI) Abstract (text)
  • "Multivariate Monte Carlo Model Fitting" J. R. Peterson (Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory), J. G. Jernigan (Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory), S. M. Kahn (Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory) Abstract (text)

  Please join us!

  Questions? Comments? Ideas for the next session?
  You are welcome to contact:

  aconnors@frances.wellesley.edu

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