AUEB-NKUA Statistical Data Science Conference 2023

    PRESS RELEASE

    AUEB-NKUA Statistical Data Science Conference 2023, Aegina, Greece

    The first “AUEB-NKUA Statistical Data Science Conference” was successfully, jointly, organized by the Department of Statistics, Athens University of Economics and Business (Greece) and the Statistics Section of the Department of Mathematics, National Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece). The Conference took place on September 6th – 8th, 2023, in Aegina, Greece.

    The main focus of the Conference was on the utilization of Statistical Machine Learning and Modelling, within the context of Modern Data Science, with particular emphasis being placed on the integration of AI and the resolution of challenges associated with vast and limited datasets, as well as high-dimensional problems.

    The Conference comprised 19 Oral Presentations, including 3 Short Courses, as well as 8 Poster Presentations, all followed by informal discussions and exchange of ideas between participants, making this event the perfect opportunity for insightful research exchange and networking, among University Professors, Researchers and Ph.D. students of different fields of Data Science expertise.

    On the first day of the Workshop (September 6th, 2023), all participants gathered at the Conference Venue, where they received a warm welcome from the Head of the Department of Statistics, Professor Ioannis Ntzoufras. Although it was pouring outside, everyone made it on time and seemed to be impatiently waiting for the event to commence.

    Stefanos Kechagias (SAS) officially initiated the Conference, by delivering the first part of their Short Course (Short Course 2), entitled: "Data story telling”:

    Their presentation was followed by a short coffee break, which gave all attendees the opportunity to slowly get to know each other and prepare for the next Short Course Presentation (Short Course 1): “Gaussian Processes” (Part A), by Petros Dellaportas (AUEB & UCL):

    The First Session of the Conference, then, occurred, comprising the following Oral Presentations:

    1. Irini Moustaki (LSE): “DIF analysis with unknown groups and anchor items”:

    2. Ioannis Ntzoufras (AUEB): “Assessing competitive balance in the English premier league using a stochastic block model”:

    3. Evangelos Ioannidis (AUEB): “A new non‐parametric cross‐spectrum estimator”:

    Upon completion of the three (3) pre-mentioned Oral Presentations, the first day of the Conference slowly came to an end. It was still raining, although not that heavily, so we decided not to leave the Conference Venue. Instead, we all grabbed pizza and drinks and spent a wonderful evening, discussing and laughing our heads off at the comfort of our “Aegina home”. 

    Day 2 (September 7th, 2023) started off with Part A of the third Short Course (Short Course 3), entitled “Bayesian methods for imaging data”, by John Kornak (University of California San Francisco, UCSF):

    The Short Course was followed by a short coffee break, upon the completion of which, Petros Dellaportas (AUEB & UCL) delivered the second part (Part B), of their Short Course (Short Course 1), entitled “Gaussian Processes”.

    A quick Lunch Break, then, took place; once it was over, we were ready for the Second Session of the Conference, which comprised the following Oral Presentations:

    1. Vasilis Chasiotis (AUEB): “Subdata selection for big data regression based on leverage scores”: