The aim of this project is to determine in which cases uncertainty statements resulting from a Bayesian statistical analysis can be trusted.

This September a new Masters Track

On February 15th 2018 former students in Methodology & Statistics (M&S) of Leiden University share their current and previous professional activities to provide M&S students an insight into their career perspectives.

During the coronavirus pandemic, scientists were in a hurry to find drugs that would help fight the disease. To combine the research that was being carried out around the world, PhD candidate Judith ter Schure developed a new statistical method: ALL-IN meta-analysis. This helps determine sooner whether…

‘Statistics? I hated that hard subject in school’, statistician Sanne Willems is often told. And that is a pity, she thinks, because statistics doesn’t necessarily have to be difficult. Together with two former fellow students, she set up a Statistics Communication section for good communication on…

Italian nurse Daniela Poggiali was arrested and convicted of murdering two hospital patients in 2014. Her case attracted the attention of Leiden statistician Richard Gill. After his investigation, together with an Italian colleague, Poggiali was acquitted last autumn. Together with fellow statisticians,…

Data science and statistics are closely linked, says Spinoza laureate and Stochastics professor Aad van der Vaart. We talk with him about the big data hype, genome research and collaboration with other disciplines. ‘Statistics helps wherever data is not perfect.’

Marta Fiocco, professor in the Mathematical Institute, has received a grant for analysing data on chemotherapy in children suffering from leukaemia. The work involves developing and applying new statistical methods that will help determining the optimal dose of chemotherapy.

After the summer, the SPSS statistics programme will be replaced by the new ‘R’ software for first year students. Hemmo Smit and Sjoerd Huisman, both lecturers in Methodology and Statistics, initiated this major change in the curriculum. That did not happen overnight.

From April 2022, Professor Paul Nieuwbeerta will be working one day a week as affiliated professor for Statistics Netherlands (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS)). He is Professor of Criminology at the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, Leiden University.

Marta Fiocco has been appointed as of 1 April as professor of applied mathematics, in particular medical statistics. Fiocco's appointment is at the Faculty of Science and at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC). She conducts research into 'personalised medicine', tailor-made medicines for cancer…

The Department of Methodology and Statistics proudly celebrates the remarkable achievements of two award winners

Promotor: A.W. van der Vaart

How can misleading graphs be effectively corrected, specifically for people with low graph literacy?

Data theory research on the analysis on the multidimensional data

Missing legends, illogical connections or three-dimensional graphs. There are many ways in which data can deceive. Five students took up the fight against misleading statistics. Their lesson series can now be found online.

Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics Jacqueline Meulman received an honorary membership during the annual meeting of the Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research (VVSOR). This makes her the eleventh honorary member of the society.

How do forensic scientists deal with complex DNA-evidence found at crime scenes? Giulia Cereda developed new statistical models to analyse them. PhD defense 12 January.

Electoral Systems and Turnout: Evidence From a Regression Discontinuity Design. In this article, published on the website SAGE research methods, authors Jaroslaw Kantorowicz and Tobias M. Hlobil discuss how a Regression Discontinuity Design can be executed.

Today, CBS launches the Center for Big Data Statistics (CBDS), a cooperation of an unprecedented scale in the field of Big Data. Leiden University and HumanityX are key partners.

United Nations Global Pulse, an initiative of the UN Secretary-General on big data and AI, recently launched the Data Fellows program. Kevin Duisters, PhD in Statistics at the Mathematical Institute, was selected to take part in its first cohort of eight international students.

Training and learning in the field of Health Care

Marta Fiocco, professor at the Mathematical Institute, has received a grant for predicting survival outcome and improving the balance between prognosis and quality of life for soft tissue sarcoma patients (Personalised Sarcoma Care).

Doctors are there to diagnose and treat people. But sometimes a diagnosis can’t be made or doctors differ in opinion. Luckily, Alireza Mashaghi Tabari and his research team have developed a new framework to solve medical diagnostic problems. This framework can also be applied to many other research…

The Sanquin blood bank gathers data on every donation. Around 720,000 donations are made every year. ‘That generates a mountain of highly valuable data,’ says Leiden PhD candidate Marieke Vinkenoog.

Using mathematics to help children with bone cancer. It sounds a little strange, but for statistician Marta Fiocco, it's just her job. She gets a substantial grant from KiKa for it. With that money, she is going to study the effect of chemotherapy adjustments.

The main methodological aspects of the use of stepwise LCA estimators under different circumstances.

Promotor: P.D. Grünwald

The ultimate goal of cosmologists is to find a cosmological model able to explain the current observational data.

Using mathematics to determine whether scientific results are significant or not. Peter Grünwald, full professor of Statistical Learning at the Mathematical Institute (MI) and senior researcher in the Machine Learning group of Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant…

Assistant Professor Lucie Zicha at Leiden University College (LUC) in The Hague is on a mission to bring statistical literacy to all undergraduate students.

Education and Organisation Development

Why use Google Maps when you can also calculate your bike route based on your own data. Statistician and cyclist Alexander Dürre sees statistics in everything around him. He analyses data of soccer games and calculates the possible winners of cycling races. ‘When I have too much time, I apply statistics…