The Cambridge University
Statistics Clinic

The Stats Clinic Returns in Lent!

Following popular demand, the Clinic will re-open in Lent 2010. The first meeting will take place on 27 January, the last one on 10 March. Between those thates, we will run on the same fortnightly schedule as before.

Would you like to be reminded of the clinic meetings automatically? Then subscribe to our talks.cam feed!

Uncertain about Uncertainty?

Are you a graduate student or academic staff at Cambridge? Does your work involve

• having to make quantitative statements about your data, including "error bars", the right size of which doesn't seem obvious at all?
• large amounts of data, full of difficult to express information?
• very limited, valuable, expensive data that you would like to make as much use of as possible?
• data generated by a complex process, not all of which is fully known, or some of which is of a stochastic nature?
• The control of a complex process, machine or system, the correct design of which is not entirely obvious?

Are you unsure how to proceed? Then maybe we can help.

Who we are

We are group of people (mostly PhD students) working in and on Statistics and Machine Learning. We come from research groups all over town. This Michaelmas, we will meet once every fortnight, in a room in the Centre for Mathematical Sciences and wait... for YOU!

What we can do for you

We cannot do your (home)work for you, and we don't want to be a replacement for Wikipedia and Google. But if you come as well-prepared as you can, we may be able to

• help you understand how to formulate your problem in a more precise, abstract way
• show you contemporary, maybe bleeding edge methods you can use to get more information out of your data, make more precise predictions, test your hypotheses more reliably, and control more complex systems
• point you to books, papers and software packages that might help you with your work
• get you in contact with other researchers in Cambridge and beyond, who specialise in your particular type of problem

What we expect in return

Not much, really. Although data and data analysis are becoming more and more important, we think Statistics is often misunderstood or applied inappropriately. We are keen to hear about interesting problems from all sciences and to help you to get more out of your data. We hope that sometimes our discussions might evolve into genuine scientific collaboration, but in many cases a small acknowledgement in your paper of our assistance (if there is any) will be fine.

Where and when to meet us

During term time, we meet fortnightly on Wednesday afternoon, 16:30-18:00, in Meeting Room 5 (MR5) in the Centre for Mathematical Sciences on Wilberforce Road.

You can just walk in and chat to us. If you would like to make an appointment instead, or if you have any further questions, please write an email to Philipp Hennig (ph347) or Richard Samworth (rjs57).