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2025 Distinguished Lecture Series in Statistical Sciences: Nancy Reid – Models and Likelihood – Sept. 30, 2025
Session Description
September 30 2025 @ 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
DLSS brings an internationally renowned statistics/data scientist to Ontario to discuss their research. A committee of statisticians from six Ontario universities (including UofT) meets annually to nominate a DLSS speaker. The series itself has been running for over two decades.
Talk Title: Models and Likelihood
With vast amounts of data available in nearly every scientific endeavour, parametrized models may seem an anachronism from a more classical age of statistics. However, the likelihood function, or one of its many variants, is regularly used in both theory and applications as a starting point, or a useful tool, or even a gold standard. This talk will discuss likelihood functions with high-dimensional parameters and the connections to nonparametric and semi-parametric modelling, with an emphasis on the importance of foundational thinking in successful statistical practice.