Dear Colleagues,
Due to some delay in logistic, the February webinar, presented by Dr. Rui Song is scheduled on March 14, 2023. This is a one-time incidence. The SLDS March webinar will still take place at the end of March.
Title: On causal decision making
Speakers: Dr. Rui Song, Senior Principal Scientist, Amazon
Date and Time: March 14, 2023, 1:00 to 2:30 pm Eastern Time
Registration Link: ASA SLDS Webinar Registration Link [eventbrite.com]
Abstract: Decision making is a fundamental aspect of human behavior. Effective decision making can lead to better outcomes, which requires an in-depth understanding of the causal relations between actions, environments, and outcomes. For example, a doctor needs to have a good understanding of the treatment effect in order to develop an effective treatment regime for the patients. In this talk, we will surface three essential components of decision making through a causal lens: 1. identifying causal relationships through causal structural learning; 2. understanding the effects of these relationships through causal effect learning, and 3. applying the above knowledge to inform decision-making through causal policy learning. Key ideas and methods will be discussed, accompanied by real-world examples to illustrate the application.
Presenter: Rui Song is a senior principal scientist at Amazon. She got her PhD in Statistics from University of Wisconsin in 2006 and has been a faculty member at North Carolina State University since 2012. Her research interests include reinforcement learning, causal inference, precision health and knowledge graph. Her research has been supported as principal investigator by National Science Foundation (NSF) including the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. She has served as an associate editor for several statistical journals. She is an elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association and Institute of Mathematical Statistics.
------------------------------
Zhihua Su, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Statistics
University of Florida
zhihuasu@stat.ufl.edu------------------------------