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TITLE: Statistics Seminar- Risk Assessments of Volcanic Hazards
SPEAKER: Susie Bayarri
ABSTRACT:
Risk assessment of rare natural hazards -- such as large volcanic
pyroclastic flows -- is addressed. Assessment is approached
through a combination of computer modeling, statistical modeling,
and extreme-event probability computation. A computer model of
the natural hazard is utilized to provide the needed
extrapolation to unseen parts of the hazard space. Statistical
modeling of the available data is needed to determine the
initializing distribution for exercise of the computer model. In
dealing with rare events, direct simulations involving the
computer model are prohibitively expensive. Solution instead
requires a combination of adaptive design of computer model
approximations (emulators) and rare event simulation. The
techniques that are developed for risk assessment are illustrated
on a test-bed example involving volcanic flow.
Bio: M.J. Bayarri is Full Professor of Statistics at the University
of Valencia , and Adjunt Professor of Statistics at DSS, Duke
University. She is Fellow of the American Statistical
Association, Ordinary Member of the International Statistical
Institute and Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.
She was President of the the International Society for Bayesian
Analysis (ISBA).and President of the Spanish Region of the
International Biometric Society. She has been in the Organizing
and Scientific Committees of numerous meetings and workshops,
with special mention to the Valencia Meetings, the Objective
Bayesian meetings, and the Workshops on Bayesian Inference and
Stochastic Processes. She was the Overall Leader of the 2006-2007
SAMSI Program on Development, Assessment and Utilization of
Complex Computer Models. She got the 2006 Wilkinson Award, and
the 2008 Jack Youden Prize. Her main research areas of interest
at the moment are Objective Bayes methods, Model selection, Model
checking, and Uncertainty quantification for computer models.
