Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers IV

June 9-14, 2008

The fourth 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, and graduate students, with a strong conceptual foundation in modern statistics and to 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 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

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

Limited funds are available for partial support of graduate students and young researchers at U.S. institutions for reimbursement of their registration fee ($195). To apply for funding, register and pay for the Summer School first, and then send an email to Professor Eric Feigelson (edf@astro.psu.edu) by March 14, 2008. Please give your name, institution, educational status, and briefly describe your research interests. Approved students will receive reimbursement of the registration fees after the Summer School is held.

Local information:
The 2008 summer school will be held on the Pennsylvania State University's University Park Campus located in State College, Pennsylvania, USA. The town of State College and the university campus combine to offer a relaxed, college town atmosphere with many shops, restaurants and points of interest. Recreational opportunities abound including fine golf courses, tennis courts, gymnasiums and swimming facilities. For maps and tourism information visit the Central Pennsylvania Convention & Visitors Bureau online.

Wireless Internet Access/Computer Information:
Wireless internet access from personal laptops require installation of a VPN communication software from the web site: http://www.work.psu.edu/access/vpn prior to arriving at Penn State. E-mail and internet are available via a computer lab at the Willard Building as well as the business computers at Days Inn Penn State. Use mobility.up.psu.edu as vpn host.