Stochastic epidemic models describe how infectious diseases spread through populations. These models are constructed by first assigning individuals to compartments (e.g., susceptible, infectious, and removed) and then defining a stochastic process that governs the evolution of sizes of these compartments through time. Stochastic epidemic models and their deterministic counterparts are useful for evaluating strategies for controlling the infectious disease spread and for predicting the future course of a given epidemic. However, fitting these models to data turns out to be a challenging task, because even the most vigilant infectious disease surveillance programs offer only noisy snapshots of the number of infected individuals in the population. Such indirect observations of the infectious disease spread result in high dimensional missing data (e.g., number and times of infections) that needs to be accounted for during statistical inference. I will demonstrate that combining stochastic process approximation techniques with high dimensional Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms makes Bayesian data augmentation for stochastic epidemic models computationally tractable. I will present examples of fitting stochastic epidemic models to  incidence time series data collected during outbreaks of Influenza and Ebola viruses.

In this workshop we will continue to work on CVs and work on personal statements for REUs.

Students are encouraged to come to all of the workshops, but are welcome to attend individual workshops even if they cannot come to all of them. The workshops are intended for Math/Data Science majors and minors, but majors and minors intending to apply to REUs in areas other than math or statistics are welcome to attend the workshops. Please note that NSF REU programs are typically restricted to US citizens and permanent residents. However the workshops may be useful for international students who wish to get help on polishing their CVs and personal statements for other programs

Final workshop on January 21, 2020.

More details:
https://tinyurl.com/REUworkshop

TBD

Second year graduate students will present a 15 minute lecture followed by a 5 minute Q&A on a chosen topic. This is the culmination of a research problem done under the guidance of a sponsoring faculty member. All are invited. Please visit the Graduate Program website for the schedule and topics.

About the Masters of Business Analytics:

The program will operate at the intersection of business, quantitative methods and information technology with a clear focus on business applications.  The program will focus on the application of current analytical methods to business problems utilizing business world data wherever possible.  This is a 33-credit program, which a student is expected to finish in 10 or 16 months, and with a new cohort starting each fall semester and the 16-month cohort will plan an internship over the summer between spring and their second fall semester. All courses will be taught by tenure track faculty, the majority out of the #1 MIS Program in Public Universities. We are confident that with our reputation in the related field of MIS and our accomplished faculty we can quickly achieve a highly ranked position in the market. Students will acquire foundational skills and tools needed to do business analytics and apply those to real situations through experiential learning.

The program has four focus areas: Data Management, Statistics, Analytics Methods and Professional Development. Courses related to the Analytics Methods form the core of the program and will be delivered via a mix of required and elective courses. The required courses are - Introduction of Business Analytics, Experimentation for Data Analysis, Data Visualization, Business Intelligence, Data Mining, and Big Data. The students will also be required to take two electives courses from their chosen functional areas. The functional areas are Accounting, Economics, Finance, Marketing, Management and MIS. Courses in Data Management and Statistics provides the foundation necessary to take courses in Analytic methods. Finally, under the Professional Development area there will be two courses - Business communications and a Consulting Project. The Business communications course will focus on translating technical material derived from analytic methods to managerially actionable strategies. The consulting project will focus on real world applications with business partner provided data.

The MSBA program also offers a dual degree option with nearly all the Master’s programs offered at Eller by simply adding an additional semester or two depending upon the program.

https://msmis.eller.arizona.edu/business-analytics

Come and bring any questions you may have. All are welcome!

We will have a final workshop to continue to refine our materials, get last minute tips, and submit our applications.

More details:
https://tinyurl.com/REUworkshop