colloquium: satellite data, stats, forests

[Jessica Kleiss]

Upcoming talk on campus! 

Hi all,

Math & Stats has an exciting data science & the environment themed colloquium next week.  The speaker is LC's own Megan Ayers, now a faculty member at Reed College.  Please join us!

Best wishes,
Liz

 Mathematics & Statistics Colloquium

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Causal Inference Powered by Satellite Data: Methods for Informing Environmental Policy

Megan Ayers (‘19)

Assistant Professor of Statistics

Reed College

What interventions and policies most effectively mitigate climate change and protect the environment? Causal inference methods can provide relevant scientific evidence for this question by rigorously demonstrating cause-and-effect relationships. However, causal assumptions often break down in these complex, real-world contexts. Satellite data coupled with machine learning methods offers an inexpensive, accessible, and detailed data source for analyses, but systematic measurement errors can introduce bias into causal estimates. This talk will focus on work that addresses challenges in evaluation of incentive-based forest conservation programs. These topics illustrate the potential of combining statistics, machine learning, and satellite data to address pressing environmental challenges.

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March 19, 2026, JR Howard 132, 4:00-5:00 

All are welcome!

Liz Stanhope, any pronoun (What's this?)

https://zoom.us/my/lizstanhope