Bayesian Hierarchical Models and Voting Rights

Our February meeting will feature a talk by Dr. Karin Knudson, of Phillips Academy, about Bayesian hierarchical models applied to political science. Join us to learn more about this interesting topic and share your story with fellow Bayesians.

Title:

Bayesian Hierarchical Models and Voting Rights

Abstract

We will discuss a hierarchical Bayesian approach to the problem of ecological inference in the context of its relevance to issues of voting rights and districting. Ecological inference methodology gained prominence since the United States Supreme Court deemed it an appropriate tool of analysis in certain cases related to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We will explore ecological inference by considering relevant hierarchical Bayesian model(s), an implementation using PyMC3, and examples and applications with voting data.

Speaker Bio

Dr. Karin Knudson is Instructor and Chair of the Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. She earned her doctorate in Mathematics at The University of Texas at Austin, studying compressive sensing and Bayesian statistics in the context of computational neuroscience. This year she is teaching a course on the mathematics of gerrymandering.

Agenda:

6:30: Networking

7:00: Talk by Karin Knudson and Q&A

8:00: Networking

9:00 pm End of the event.

Sponsors:

This event is sponsored by QuantumBlack (https://quantumblack.com/), a McKinsey Company