SDSCon 2019

Friday, April 5, 2019 | MIT Media Lab E14-674

Overview

As part of the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), the Statistics and Data Science Center (SDSC) is a MIT-wide focal point for advancing academic programs and research activities in statistics and data science. SDSCon will be a celebration and community-building event for those interested in statistics. Discussions will cover applications of statistics and data science across a wide range of fields and approaches.

Agenda

Introductory Remarks by Anantha P. Chandrakasan, Dean of the MIT School of Engineering, Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Plenary Talk 1: “Leveraging Data science, Experiments, and Informal Social Networks for the Common Good: The Example of Immunization” by Esther Duflo, Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics, MIT

Interfaces and Transitions Session

“Luck and the Law: Quantifying Chance in Fantasy Sports and Other Contests” by Peko Hosoi, Associate Dean of Engineering & Neil and Jane Pappalardo Professor of Mechanical Engineering, MIT

“Dynamic Pricing and Matching for Ride-Hailing” by Dawn Woodard, Director of Data Science – Maps, UBER & Adjunct Professor, Cornell University

“Improving Subseasonal Forecasting in the Western U.S. with Machine Learning” by Lester Mackey, Statistical Machine Learning Researcher, Microsoft Research & Adjunct Professor, Stanford University

Plenary Talk 2: “Reinforcement Learning” by John Tsitsiklis, Clarence J Lebel Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science & Director of Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), MIT

Social Sciences Session

“Data-driven Policy Analysis for the 21st Century” by Alberto Abadie, Professor of Economics & Associate Director of IDSS

“The Ethical Algorithm” by Aaron Roth, Class of 1940 Bicentennial Term Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania

“Markets and Mechanisms for Public Decision Making” by Ashish Goel, Professor of Management Science and Engineering and, (by courtesy) of Computer Science, Stanford University

MIT Session

“Capacity Lower Bound for the Ising perceptron” by Nike Sun, Associate Professor, MIT
From Profiles to Causal Mechanisms: Design for Inference in biology: Aviv Regev, Professor of Biology, MIT & Core Member, Broad Institute

VIDEO NOT AVAILABLE

Closing Remarks by Devavrat Shah, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science & Director of Statistics and Data Science Center, MIT

SDSCon 2018

Friday, April 20, 2018 | MIT Bartos Theater, 20 Ames Street, Wiesner Building E15, Atrium Level

Overview

The mission of SDSC is to advance research activities and academic programs in the “21st Century Statistics” whose foundations include Probability, Statistics, Computation and Data Analysis. The conference will feature presentations from established academic leaders, industry innovators, and rising stars. Discussions will cover a wide range of theory and application, representing the latest research and breakthroughs in statistics and data science.

Agenda

Introductory remarks by Michael Sipser, Dean of MIT School of Science, and Devavrat Shah, Director of MIT Statistics and Data Science Center

Session 1: MIT

Leonid Mirny, Professor, MIT Department of Physics

Joshua Tenenbaum, Professor, MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences

Piotr Indyk, Professor, MIT Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Plenary Talk 1 : “Predicting Human Error” by Sendhil Mullainathan, Professor, Harvard University, Economics

Plenary Talk 2: “Natural Language for Societal Challenges” by Kathleen McKeown, Professor, Columbia University, Computer Science

Session 2: Industry

Been Kim, Research Scientist, Google Brain on “Interpretability Beyond Feature Attribution: Quantitative Testing with Concept Activation Vectors (TCAV)”

Carlos Gomez Uribe, Internet Tech Product and Algorithms Leader, Facebook on “Data Science At Facebook”

Session 3: Panel Discussion “Frontiers of Data Visualization” moderated by Arvind Satyanarayan, Post-Doctoral Research Scientist, Google Brain & Assistant Professor, MIT EECS/CSAIL.

Speakers: Matthew Kay, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan, School of Information, Uncertainty Visualization, Martin Wattenberg, Senior Staff Research Scientist, Google, and Michelle Borkin, Assistant Professor, Northeastern University, Computer and Information Science.

Plenary Talk 3: “Multi-Period Trading via Convex Optimization” by Stephen Boyd, Professor, Stanford University, Engineering

SDSCon 2017

Friday, April 21, 2017 | MIT, Building 34, Room 401

Overview

As part of the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), the Statistics and Data Science Center (SDSC) is a MIT-wide focal point for advancing academic programs and research activities in statistics and data science. SDSC Day will be a celebration and community-building event for those interested in statistics. Discussions will cover applications of statistics and data science across a wide range of fields and approaches.

Agenda

Introductory remarks by Professor Devavrat Shah, Director of SDSC

Panel Session 1: “Current Research in SDSC”

David Gamarnik, Professor, MIT, Sloan School of Management

Tamara Broderick, Assistant Professor, MIT, EECS

Stefanie Jegelka, Assistant Professor, MIT, EECS

Philippe Rigollet, Associate Professor, MIT, Mathematics

Guy Bresler, Assistant Professor, MIT, EECS

Ankur Moitra, Assistant Professor, MIT, Mathematics

Plenary Talk 1: Michael Steele, Professor, University of Pennsylvania, Statistics on “Expectations: What Makes Them Great?”

Industry Session: Using Data Science to Address Current Industry Challenges

Speakers: Alex Cosmas, Chief Scientist, Booz Allen Hamilton

Brian Ulicny, Director, Data Science, Thomson Reuters Labs

Plenary Talk 2: Jennifer Listgarten, Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research on “Genetics to CRISPR Gene Editing with Machine Learning”

Panel Session 2: “Current Research in SDSC”

Emery Brown, Professor, MIT, Brain and Cognitive Sciences

Rahul Mazumder, Assistant Professor, MIT, Sloan School of Management

In Song Kim, Assistant Professor, MIT, Department of Political Science

Alberto Abadie, Professor, MIT, Economics

Plenary Talk 3: James Stock, Professor, Harvard University, Economics on “Statistical Analysis of Climate Data”