Archive for BayesComp 2027

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BayesComp²⁰²⁷ mirror in Aussois

Posted in Mountains, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 13, 2026 by xi'an

Here we go! We have just completed the webpage for the BayesComp 2027 mirror conference in Aussois, French Alps, and launched the call for contributions.

This meeting mirrors the main BayesComp 2027 conference, held in Texas on the same week. As such, it will broadcast live and delayed sessions from the main conference, including plenary sessions, host local talk and poster sessions (to be broadcasted), and more generally provide an alternative forum for researchers in Bayesian computational statistics who cannot attend BayesComp 2027. As discussed earlier on the ‘Og, and following a debate launched at the ISBA 2024 World Meeting in Venezia, ISBA is now considering mirror (or multi-hub) meetings as a possible way to address accessibility, sustainability, and inclusiveness issues in its scientific meetings. 

The scientific committee will select presentations soon after the submission deadline, on 30 November 2026. Note that due to the capacity of the CAES Paul Langevin conference centre in Aussois the number of participants will be capped at 200. (Travel to Aussois by train to Modane is easy, thanks to direct, fast trains from Paris (4h), Torino (1h), and Lyon (2h). And by car if need be, since Modane is the French exit of the Tunnel du Fréjus (aka Traforo Alpino del Fréjus) linking France and Italy, the Italian exit being Bardonecchia.)

Important Dates

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ISBA⁵

Posted in pictures, Running, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 4, 2026 by xi'an

After a pleasant run under the pouring rain (noisy rain that had not helped with my sleep or lack thereof), I attended both morning episodes of Calibrated Bayes, with a range of interesting, mostly novel, questions and solutions. And rekindling my interrogations about overparameterised models and model misspecification within a Bayesian framework. And the elusive notion of outliers.

The noon discussion around our report as the committee on the future of ISBA conferences went on rather well, given the circumstances, with about 50 participants with ideas and opinions on the opportunity of splitting the ISBA World into multiple hubs. And on the practical difficulties. (Despite the itch to do it, I did not intervene with my counter-objections to most of the raised objections! Nor mentioned BayesComp in Aussois.) Participants of the (unofficial) 2021 mirror in Marseille brought some welcomed support!

Daniele Durante’s Bayarri lecture on skew symmetric approximations was also attuned to the approximation spirit of the morning. The symmetrisation of the target reminded me of our (unpublished) folded method. With the (unrelated) question of the statistical meaning of a higher order Laplace expansion. And the calibration of this skewed approximation.

The final session on Cut Bayes couldn’t be missed!, since this has been an interest of mine’s since MCMSki IV in Chamonix! With an automated cut model construction by Robert Goude and an optimised choice of generalised Bayes posteriors by David Nott.

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ISBA³

Posted in pictures, Running, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 2, 2026 by xi'an

After another absurdly early run along the Sendai River, in higher humidity than yesterday, I had plenty of time to have breakfast and commute to the conference centre for our privacy section. (“Ours” since I organised and chaired the session, but also all speakers were related with our ERC OCEAN project.) With talks by Antoine Luciano (Dauphine), Shenggang Hu (Warwick) and Joshua Bon (formerly Dauphine), Shenggang presenting his work with Gareth on calibrating a DP, noisy, unbiased, version of Metropolis-Hastings. Given the other sessions highly competing with ours, this 100% OCEAN session was well-attended! My second morning session was the theory & method part of the Savage Award, with unfortunately two of the speakers stuck in the US for visa issues and presenting remotely. There have been years where this session suffered from competition from parallel sessions, but this time showed a quite decent attendance.

As most members of the scientific committee of the BayesComp mirror in Aussois were present, we went out for lunch at a nearby hitsumabushi restaurant to plan registrations and local sessions. Which proved very productive despite enjoying the fantastic eel dishes! If making me miss the beginning of the afternoon session… and then the whole session as the room on predictive Bayes was packed (and some speakers had already delivered on the Isle of Skye). I managed to get to Bottond Szabo’s Foundation lecture, with again common threads with Skye, and then returned to my rental as I was quickly crashing…

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invited sessions for BayesComp 2027

Posted in pictures, Travel, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 12, 2026 by xi'an

BayesComp 2027, ISBA computational conference (and successor to the MCMski series) will take place in Texas A&M University, College Station, on 18-20 May 2027. The scientific committee has launched a call for invited session proposals, with deadline 15 Aug 2026. For those unable to get to Texas, a mirror meeting is planned in Aussois, French Alps, on the same week. (Details to follow.)

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approximately Bayes [on Skye]

Posted in Mountains, pictures, Running, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 28, 2026 by xi'an

Wow, what an exciting workshop in an equally exciting place! Strong themes were post-Bayes (Gibbs priors, martingale priors, predictive Bayes, &tc.) and deep neural network modelling. With animated discussions allowed by the free windows planned in the program. And the very early dinner at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig that let a long sunlit evening for impromptu Q&A’s [with a serving of lamb and another of haggis pie!]. Making me realise the large corpus of work I had missed in the past years on these topics, even though the satellite of BayesComp last year was already an eye opener. (Stay tuned for news about BayesComp 2027 & its mirror in Aussois!) The proposal in Jeff Miller’s discussion of Jeremias Knoblauch’s overview of post-Bayes [I’d rather favour another name!]  to consider directly likelihood values as the data was particularly appealing to me, while reminding me of the foundations of nested sampling. (Hopefully, a new perspective on uncertainty assessment for nested sampling is soon to be completed!)

On the non-academic side, the long days in The North helped with my running with above 90km bagged in the week (and no downpour on the runs). But little to my swimming since the water was cold enough to limit my laps to 5mn each time! Paradoxically the worst day was the one I chose for climbing the Inaccessible Pinnacle (as expanded in another ‘Og entry).

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