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Statistical Methodology & Data Analysis

Overview

Collecting astronomical data is one of many important steps in the scientific process.  Successful scientific interpretation requires sound data analyzing and statistical methodologies.  Often astronomers reinvent methods that have previously been developed and studied extensively by statisticians or scientists in other fields.   Thus, astronomers can benefit greatly from awareness and interaction of modern research in statistical sciences.  Members of the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds greatly benefit from interactions with Penn State’s Center for Astrostatistics which has been a leader in advancing the level of statistical rigour in astronomy and astrophysics.

Areas of Specialty

  • Statistical Methodology (Feigelson, Ford)
  • Astrostatistics Education (Feigelson, Ford)
  • Bayesian methods (Ford, Greybush)
  • Analysis of transit photometry (Ford, Wright)
  • Analysis of radial velocity observations (Ford, Mahadevan, Wright)

Faculty Contacts

  • Eric Feigelson is an expert the application of statistical methods to problems in astronomy & astrophysics.
  • Eric Ford is a leader in the development and application of practical Bayesian methods for the analysis and interpretation of exoplanet observations. Ford is collaborating with statisticans to apply machine learning algorithms to develop improved stellar activity indicators and algorithms for distinguishing stellar activity and planets.

  • Steven Greybush is an expert in data assimilation for applciation to planetary atmospheres.
  • Suvrath Mahadevan is working with Dr. Paul Robertson to develop methods to dissentangle Doppler signals induced by small planets from stellar activity.

  • Jason Wright and his collaborators maintain the IDL software packages RVLIN (which performs fast, multi-planet, multi-observatory Keplerian fitting of radial velocity time series), BOOTTRAN (which drives RVLIN to generate Keplerian parameter uncertainties using statistical bootstrapping), and BARYCORR (a routine for Doppler work that corrects for the relative motion of the Earth and stellar system barycenter, precise to < 1 mm/s).

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