Center for Astrostatistics

Astronomy at the beginning of the 21st century, and particularly research arising from wide-field survey observatories at various wavebands, finds itself with serious challenges in statistical treatments of data to achieve its astrophysical goals. A vast range of statistical problems arise in the scientific interpretation of astronomical studies involving sampling, multivariate and survival analysis, image and spatial analysis, signal processing and time series analysis, nonlinear regression, and more.

It is this diversity of statistical issues confronting astronomy today that led to the creation of the Center for Astrostatistics at Penn State in 2003 to facilitate development and promulgation of statistical expertise and toolkits for astronomy and related observational sciences. The Center is housed in the Department of Statistics. The activities of the Center are multi-faceted: conduct and support research on forefront problems; provide forums where active astrostatistical researchers can interact; foster new cross-disciplinary collaborations; liaise with other organizations oriented towards statistical applications in physical sciences. One of the aims is to disseminate advanced methodologies to the wider astronomical and space science communities through curriculum development, tutorial workshops, Web-based resources, and public software.

VOStat is a web based service providing a suite of tools allowing astronomers to use both simple and sophisticated statistical routines. StatCodes is a Web metasite with links to public domain software implementing statistical methods.

The Center serves as a crossroads where researchers at the interfaces between statistics, data analysis, astronomy, space and observational physics collaborate, develop and share methodologies, and together prepare the next generation of researchers.

Past Programs

2011 Astrostatistics Course at The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).
- September 27, 2011: Foundations of Probability, Probability Distribution Functions
- October 3, 2011: Introduction to Astrostatistics, Introduction to R, An R tutorial
- October 11, 2011: Inference I, Inference II
- October 18, 2011: Multivariate Analysis, Regression
- October 25, 2011: Bootstrap, Model Selection
- November 14, 2011: R Tutorials 1, R Tutorials 2

Three astrostatistical events were held at the Pennsylvania State University in June 2011.
- Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers (June 6-10, 2011).
- Pre-conference tutorials (June 11-12, 2011)
- Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy V ( June 13-17, 2011).

The 3rd IIA-Penn State Astrostatistics School (July 19-27, 2010): The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) and the Center for Astrostatistics have jointly organizing the third school in statistics for practicing astrophysicists at the Vainu Bappu Observatory, located near the village of Kavalur in the Javadi Hills.

Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers VI was held during June 7-12, 2010 at the Pennsylvania State University (Schedule and Lectures, Photographs).
This was immediately followed by a supplementary program on Statistics and Computation for Astronomical Surveys (June 12-14, 2010) (Schedule and Lectures). Participant contributed photographs.

Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers V was held during June 1-6, 2009 at the Pennsylvania State University (Schedule and Lectures, Photographs).

The 2nd IIA-Penn State Astrostatistics School (July 9-16, 2008): The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) and the Center for Astrostatistics have jointly organized the second school in statistics for practicing astrophysicists at the Vainu Bappu Observatory, located near the village of Kavalur in the Javadi Hills. Photographs.

Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers IV was held during June 9-14, 2008 at the Pennsylvania State University (Schedule and Lectures, Photographs).

The IIA-Penn State Astrostatistics School (July 2-7, 2007): The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) and the Center for Astrostatistics have jointly organized a 6-day school in statistical inference for practicing astrophysicists and physicists affiliated with Indian institutions. The school is based on the curriculum developed for the Summer Schools in Statistics for Astronomers at the Center for Astrostatistics. The school was held on the picturesque campus of the Vainu Bappu Observatory, a field station of the IIA, located near the village of Kavalur in the Javadi Hills, about 175 km south-east of Bangalore. Photographs.

Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers III (June 4-9, 2007): Schedule and Lectures, Photographs). It received the 2007 University Continuing Education Association (Mid-Atlantic Region) award for exemplary non-credit program development.

Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy IV (June 12-15, 2006): The fourth in a series of interdisciplinary international research conferences (Conference Program, Photographs, Conference Poster).

Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers and Physicists II was held during June 6-10, 2006 at the Pennsylvania State University (Schedule and Lectures, Photographs).

SAMSI Astrostatistics Program (January - May, 2006): A semester long research program on Astrostatistics was held at Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute. The program started with Tutorials [Videos of Tutorials] followed by Opening Workshop (January 23-25, 2006). Four Working Groups (Exoplanets, Surveys & Population Studies, Gravitational Lensing, and Source Detection & Feature Detection) met on a regular schedule at SAMSI. Photographs.

Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers and Physicists was held during June 5-17, 2005 at the Pennsylvania State University (Schedule and Lectures, Photographs, Summer School Poster).