July 2022 Newsletter

Upcoming Activities

August 29 – September 2, 2022: Expressing and Exploiting Structure in Modeling, Theory, and Computation with Gaussian Processes

Fall 2022 Long Program: Confronting Global Climate Change, September 19-December 9, 2022

Climate change is already seriously impacting our lives in many ways. Threats to human and natural systems will increase as our planet continues to warm. This program will explore mathematical, statistical and computational strategies to better understand both the changes to the climate system and the associated impacts. A series of workshops will focus on climate models, detection and attribution of climate change, extreme weather and climate events, remote sensing, machine learning, and the economic consequences of climate change. This program aims to foster new multidisciplinary collaborations and integrate young scientists and researchers into industry, private sector, and academic research through these workshops and embedded research projects with affiliated universities, national laboratories, and private industry.

September 19-23, 2022: Climate Model Evaluation and Uncertainty

October 3-7, 2022: Climate and Weather Extremes

October 17-21, 2022: Detection and Attribution of Climate Change

October 31 - November 4, 2022: Machine Learning for Climate and Weather Applications

November 30 - December 2, 2022: Remote Sensing for Climate Analysis

December 7-9, 2022: Economic Impacts of Climate Change

January 9-February 3, 2023: Interdisciplinary and Critical Data Science Motivated by Social Justice

This research collaboration workshop will partner with the Institute for the Quantitative Study of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity (QSIDE), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that sits at the intersection of social science, humanities research, data science, and social justice. A hallmark of QSIDE work is interdisciplinary teamwork, which fosters collaboration between data scientists, social scientists, and community experts. This working group will gather the interdisciplinary expertise needed for current QSIDE projects together for data science for social good effort to 1) explore new statistical, computational, and qualitative approaches for analyzing social justice data, 2) to incorporate current scholarship on critical digital and data, and 3) to create infrastructure for and document these interdisciplinary collaborative efforts. We will open with a public minisymposium on critical data science practices and introduce data science for social justice work. We will then work to identify projects within our goal areas and create research teams. Throughout the program, we engage in discussions on the interdisciplinary and critical data science process and invite guest speakers related to the context areas of our explorations and/or to the methodologies we are using. The end of the program will conclude with a closing online minisymposium where participants will present work some, future directions, and open problems for the community.

Apply for Research Membership

Spring 2023 Long Program: Mathematics, Statistics, and Innovation in Medical and Health Care, March 4-May 24, 2023

The quantification of medical and health care has brought a revolution to our lives with strong and long-lasting social and economic positive impact. This quantification stems from an exemplary synergy among mathematics, statistics, data science, medicine, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), and has been prompting the creation of new interdisciplinary areas across the various fields. While there has been an unprecedented growth and development in many scientific directions, there is a continuing need to further develop existing areas and set the foundations for new ones, as the underlying issues and challenges are evolving in rather complex and interlinked ways. Indeed, creating new therapies has experienced a fast growth already but efficiently funding such innovations and, in turn, making them available at large-scale has its own distinct challenges and demand for new business models and novel decision-making mechanisms. Furthermore, personalized medicine is rapidly becoming a main component of medical care but many issues directly related to the patients’ attitude, risk communication and individual treatment decisions have not been neither extensively studied nor quantified.

The long-term program aims at creating an interdisciplinary platform for knowledge exchange and debate among the various stakeholders: mathematicians, statisticians, physicians, economists, computer scientists, policy makers and researchers in decision science, data science, ML, AI, business, operations research and engineering. The focus will be more on newer interdisciplinary themes like risk management, funding and R&D of biomedical innovation, health care system design, health care delivery, insurance coverage, personalized diagnostics and treatments, telemedicine, medical cyber-physical systems and others.

Apply for Spring 2023 Research Membership

Fall 2023 Long Program: Algebraic Statistics and Our Changing World: New Methods for New Challenges, September 18-December 15, 2023

Spring 2024 Long Program: Data-Driven Materials Informatics: Statistical Methods and Mathematical Analysis, March 4-May 24, 2024

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IMSI Seeks Program and Workshop Proposals

IMSI is currently seeking proposals for long programs, workshops, and other scientific activity with a deadline of September 15, 2022. Information about how to submit proposals can be found on the proposal overview page and the resources linked therein. There are currently openings for long programs in 2024-25 and beyond, and openings for workshops in the winter of 2023 and beyond.

New Podcast: Carry the Two

IMSI’s new podcast, Carry the Two, launched on June 21, 2022. Part of the University of Chicago Podcast Network, Carry the Two is the show that pulls back the curtain to reveal the mathematical and statistical gears that turn the world. It is a curiosity-driven podcast that looks to find unique perspectives from the fields of mathematics and statistics. It will use stories to convey how mathematics and statistics drive the world around us, with each episode tackling a different topic. This can be anything from modeling how bees in a swarm make group decisions to how we can use textual analysis to reveal surprising changes in policy documents.

Carry the Two is hosted by Sadie Witkowski, Director of Communications and Engagement at IMSI, and Ian Martin. You can find a list of episodes on IMSI’s website at https://www.imsi.institute/podcast/ and can listen and subscribe on podcast platforms including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

Seeking Writers for MathStatBites

IMSI recently launched MathStatBites, an educational blog that provides translations of mathematics and statistics research into digestible “bites.” MathStatBites is part of the ScienceBites galaxy. It offers early career researchers the opportunity to gain experience in writing accessible summaries of mathematical and statistical research for individuals who are not experts in those fields. Writers create short blog posts based on newly published, peer-reviewed articles.

We are currently recruiting writers for MathStatBites. If you are interested in becoming a writer for MathStatBites, contact Sadie Witkowski, Director of Communications and Engagement at IMSI at [email protected].

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IMSI acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation
(Grant No. DMS-1929348)

Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation
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