Speaker
Description
Astronomy has been one of the pioneering sciences in handling large volumes of data, which has historically meant that the bond between astronomy and statistics has been very strong. However, due to the advent of modern astrophysics in the 20th century, a significant estrangement between astronomy and statistics arose. Only recently the bond has begun to mend and to grow strong again thanks to astronomers acknowledging the limitations of "tried and true" statistical methods and becoming more willing to learn and apply modern statistical methods to their research. Incidentally, this has created an open science environment in which these methods have become available for anyone, lowering the barriers to entry for many astronomers in the Global South. In particular, I will mention how this has impacted my own research using a few examples from recent years.
