Summer school students were introduced to a range of quantitative methods from mathematics, statistics and computing.

The Quantitative Sciences Research Institute (QSRI) supported the inaugural summer school on ‘Machine Learning and Applied Statistics’ at Imperial College London, a joint initiative between the Department of Mathematics and the Imperial College Business School. The three-week programme between 1-19 July 2019 was delivered by world-leading academics and researchers from the Department of Mathematics using a mix of face-to-face lectures, hands-on problem classes and an online platform. Students were made aware of how to use the quantitative methods in applications such as finance and bioimaging.

The programme

Week one was delivered by Dr Seth Flaxman, and gave students the opportunity to acquire basic programming skills.  They began implementing classic machine learning algorithms for supervised and unsupervised learning and developed understanding of the key concepts of deep learning.

The second week was delivered by Professor Almut Veraart, academic lead for the QSRI and the summer school, and saw students enhance their knowledge of statistics and probability. They were able to carry out exploratory data analysis on real time series data, and fit suitable models to the data to assess the model fit and to make predictions. They learnt about stylised facts of financial data and how to account for them in model building.

Week three, delivered by Dr Ed Cohen, allowed students to gain experience in handling and processing real imaging data. They performed exploratory data analysis on spatial point patterns and interpreted the results. They were also able to code algorithms for performing statistical tests and correctly interpret the results.

The academic team was ably supported by our Graduate Teaching Assistants: Adriaan Hilbers, Hormoz Ramian, Jonathan Ish-Horowicz, Lekha Patel, Mariana Clare, Scott Ward, Tim Wolock, Valentin Courgeau.

About the QSRI

The purpose of the QSRI is to enable interactions for modelling and quantifying interdisciplinary phenomena. It is intended as a vehicle for boosting Imperial’s profile internationally, and for facilitating new collaborations across departments at Imperial. The QSRI website provides information on our activities such as co-sponsored workshops, summer school, team and contact details. If you would like to keep up-to-date with QSRI news and funding opportunities, you may want to join our mailing list.