Michael Betancourt | PIMS - Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences

Applied Statistician, Symplectomorphic, LLC

Michael Betancourt is the principal research scientist at Symplectomorphic, LLC where he develops theoretical and methodological tools to support practical Bayesian inference. He is also a core developer of Stan, where he implements and tests these tools. In addition to hosting courses on Bayesian modeling and inference with Stan he also collaborates and consults on analyses in epidemiology, pharmacology, engineering, marketing, and physics, amongst others. Before moving into statistics Michael earned a B.S. from the California Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in physics.

Despite the promise of big data, inferences are often limited not by sample size but rather by systematic effects. Only by carefully modeling these effects can we take full advantage of the data -- big data must be complemented with big models and...