STAT Seminar: Learning the ocean's microbial ecology using statistical mixture models

Presenter: Sangwon Hyun, Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz

Description: Although microscopic, phytoplankton in the ocean are extremely important to all of life and are together responsible for as much photosynthesis as all plants on land combined. Oceanographers now routinely collect single cell data in real-time while onboard a moving ship, which yields high-resolution information about the distribution of phytoplankton across thousands of kilometers. We present new statistical methods designed to estimate time-varying phytoplankton sub-populations from flow cytometry data while simultaneously identifying the specific environmental drivers. We apply this model to data from numerous oceanographic ships deployed in the North Pacific ocean and learn new insights about the relationship between marine microbial populations and environmental factors.

Bio: Sangwon is an assistant professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Before his current position, he was a post-doctoral researcher, with a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University. His research interests include oceanographic data analysis, epidemiological modeling/forecasting, changepoint detection, and selective inference. More generally, he develops statistical tools for large complex data in real-world scientific applications.

Hosted by: Statistics Department

Monday, March 13, 2023 at 4:00pm to 5:05pm

Jack Baskin Engineering, BE 156
Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, California 95064

Event Type

Lectures & Presentations

Invited Audience

Alumni, Faculty & Staff, Students, Graduate Students

Topics

Science & Technology

Group
Baskin School of Engineering, Statistics Department
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