Bayesian Data Analysis and Applications to Cosmology

Barnaby Sproats

I finished my 2nd year of mathematics knowing a lot of maths but feeling unconfident in how to do “real world” problems that involved data, numerical methods and statistical tests. Therefore, I was so excited to work with Siri Chongchitnan in a Cosmology research project.

I learnt practical Bayesian statistics which is something that passes by a lot of maths students unless they take a more academic module. Then, I learnt some Cosmology and the programming language R, to infer things like the curvature of the universe from real telescope data!

The actual project took the form of me and my supervisor discussing what I would spend the next week researching/investigating, and then me trying to do that. So, whilst I wasn’t going in blind, I was doing the researching and problem solving myself which was fun (but tough in places).

Furthermore, me and my supervisor got on really well. Therefore, an unseen bonus of the URSS was having someone to chat to about my future who had studied the things I wanted to study. Now in fact, he is supervising my 3rd year essay.