Courses

A treatment of ideas and techniques most commonly found in the applications of probability: Gaussian and Poisson processes, limit theorems, large deviation principles, information, Markov chains and Markov chain Monte Carlo, martingales, Brownian motion and diffusion.

The course is designed as a sequence with Statistics C205B/Mathematics C218B with the following combined syllabus. Measure theory concepts needed for probability. Expection, distributions. Laws of large numbers and central limit theorems for independent random variables. Characteristic function methods. Conditional expectations, martingales and martingale convergence theorems. Markov chains. Stationary processes. Brownian motion.

Applied statistics with a focus on critical thinking, reasoning skills, and techniques. Hands-on-experience with solving real data problems with high-level programming languages such as R. Emphasis on examining the assumptions behind standard statistical models and methods. Exploratory data analysis (e.g., graphical data summaries, PCAs, clustering analysis). Model formulation, fitting, and validation and testing. Linear regression and generalizations (e.g., GLMs, ridge regression, lasso).

Concepts in statistical programming and statistical computation, including programming principles, data and text manipulation, parallel processing, simulation, numerical linear algebra, and optimization.

A comprehensive survey course in statistical theory and methodology. Topics include descriptive statistics, maximum likelihood estimation, non-parametric methods, introduction to optimality, goodness-of-fit tests, analysis of variance, bootstrap and computer-intensive methods and least squares estimation. The laboratory includes computer-based data-analytic applications to science and engineering.

This course is about statistical learning methods and their use for data analysis. Upon completion, students will be able to build baseline models for real world data analysis problems, implement models using programming languages and draw conclusions from models. The course will cover principled statistical methodology for basic machine learning tasks such as regression, classification, dimension reduction and clustering. Methods discussed will include linear regression, subset selection, ridge regression, LASSO, logistic regression, kernel smoothing methods, tree based methods, bagging and boosting, neural networks, Bayesian methods, as well as inference techniques based on resampling, cross validation and sample splitting.

This course will focus on approaches to causal inference using the potential outcomes framework. It will also use causal diagrams at an intuitive level. The main topics are classical randomized experiments, observational studies, instrumental variables, principal stratification and mediation analysis. Applications are drawn from a variety of fields including political science, economics, sociology, public health, and medicine. This course is a mix of statistical theory and data analysis. Students will be exposed to statistical questions that are relevant to decision and policy making.

To be taken concurrently with service as a consultant in the department's drop-in consulting service. Participants will work on problems arising in the service and will discuss general ways of handling such problems. There will be working sessions with researchers in substantive fields and occasional lectures on consulting.

Special topics, by means of lectures and informational conferences.

Discussion, problem review and development, guidance of laboratory classes, course development, supervised practice teaching.

Population and variables. Standard measures of location, spread and association. Normal approximation. Regression. Probability and sampling. Interval estimation. Some standard significance tests.

Foundations of data science from three perspectives: inferential thinking, computational thinking, and real-world relevance. Given data arising from some real-world phenomenon, how does one analyze that data so as to understand that phenomenon? The course teaches critical concepts and skills in computer programming and statistical inference, in conjunction with hands-on analysis of real-world datasets, including economic data, document collections, geographical data, and social networks. It delves into social and legal issues surrounding data analysis, including issues of privacy and data ownership.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

Descriptive statistics, probability models and related concepts, sample surveys, estimates, confidence intervals, tests of significance, controlled experiments vs. observational studies, correlation and regression.

In this course, students will explore the data science lifecycle, including question formulation, data collection and cleaning, exploratory data analysis and visualization, statistical inference and prediction​, and decision-making.​ This class will focus on quantitative critical thinking​ and key principles and techniques needed to carry out this cycle. These include languages for transforming, querying and analyzing data; algorithms for machine learning methods including regression, classification and clustering; principles behind creating informative data visualizations; statistical concepts of measurement error and prediction; and techniques for scalable data processing.

An introduction to probability, emphasizing concepts and applications. Conditional expectation, independence, laws of large numbers. Discrete and continuous random variables. Central limit theorem. Selected topics such as the Poisson process, Markov chains, characteristic functions.

A comprehensive survey course in statistical theory and methodology. Topics include descriptive statistics, maximum likelihood estimation, non-parametric methods, introduction to optimality, goodness-of-fit tests, analysis of variance, bootstrap and computer-intensive methods and least squares estimation. The laboratory includes computer-based data-analytic applications to science and engineering.

General theory of zero-sum, two-person games, including games in extensive form and continuous games, and illustrated by detailed study of examples.

Population and variables. Standard measures of location, spread and association. Normal approximation. Regression. Probability and sampling. Interval estimation. Some standard significance tests.

Foundations of data science from three perspectives: inferential thinking, computational thinking, and real-world relevance. Given data arising from some real-world phenomenon, how does one analyze that data so as to understand that phenomenon? The course teaches critical concepts and skills in computer programming and statistical inference, in conjunction with hands-on analysis of real-world datasets, including economic data, document collections, geographical data, and social networks. It delves into social and legal issues surrounding data analysis, including issues of privacy and data ownership.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

An introduction to the R statistical software for students with minimal prior experience with programming. This course prepares students for data analysis with R. The focus is on the computational model that underlies the R language with the goal of providing a foundation for coding. Topics include data types and structures, such as vectors, data frames and lists; the REPL evaluation model; function calls, argument matching, and environments; writing simple functions and control flow. Tools for reading, analyzing, and plotting data are covered, such as data input/output, reshaping data, the formula language, and graphics models.

In this course, students will explore the data science lifecycle, including question formulation, data collection and cleaning, exploratory data analysis and visualization, statistical inference and prediction​, and decision-making.​ This class will focus on quantitative critical thinking​ and key principles and techniques needed to carry out this cycle. These include languages for transforming, querying and analyzing data; algorithms for machine learning methods including regression, classification and clustering; principles behind creating informative data visualizations; statistical concepts of measurement error and prediction; and techniques for scalable data processing.

This course develops the probabilistic foundations of inference in data science, and builds a comprehensive view of the modeling and decision-making life cycle in data science including its human, social, and ethical implications. Topics include: frequentist and Bayesian decision-making, permutation testing, false discovery rate, probabilistic interpretations of models, Bayesian hierarchical models, basics of experimental design, confidence intervals, causal inference, Thompson sampling, optimal control, Q-learning, differential privacy, clustering algorithms, recommendation systems and an introduction to machine learning tools including decision trees, neural networks and ensemble methods.

This course teaches a broad range of statistical methods that are used to solve data problems. Topics include group comparisons and ANOVA, standard parametric statistical models, multivariate data visualization, multiple linear regression, logistic regression and classification, regression trees and random forests. An important focus of the course is on statistical computing and reproducible statistical analysis. The course and lab include hands-on experience in analyzing real world data from the social, life, and physical sciences. The R statistical language is used.

An introduction to computationally intensive applied statistics. Topics will include organization and use of databases, visualization and graphics, statistical learning and data mining, model validation procedures, and the presentation of results.

An introduction to probability, emphasizing concepts and applications. Conditional expectation, independence, laws of large numbers. Discrete and continuous random variables. Central limit theorem. Selected topics such as the Poisson process, Markov chains, characteristic functions.

A comprehensive survey course in statistical theory and methodology. Topics include descriptive statistics, maximum likelihood estimation, non-parametric methods, introduction to optimality, goodness-of-fit tests, analysis of variance, bootstrap and computer-intensive methods and least squares estimation. The laboratory includes computer-based data-analytic applications to science and engineering.

An introduction to probability, emphasizing the combined use of mathematics and programming. Discrete and continuous families of distributions. Bounds and approximations. Transforms and convergence. Markov chains and Markov Chain Monte Carlo. Dependence, conditioning, Bayesian methods. Maximum likelihood, least squares prediction, the multivariate normal, and multiple regression. Random permutations, symmetry, and order statistics. Use of numerical computation, graphics, simulation, and computer algebra.

Random walks, discrete time Markov chains, Poisson processes. Further topics such as: continuous time Markov chains, queueing theory, point processes, branching processes, renewal theory, stationary processes, Gaussian processes.

A coordinated treatment of linear and generalized linear models and their application. Linear regression, analysis of variance and covariance, random effects, design and analysis of experiments, quality improvement, log-linear models for discrete multivariate data, model selection, robustness, graphical techniques, productive use of computers, in-depth case studies.

An introduction to time series analysis in the time domain and spectral domain. Topics will include: estimation of trends and seasonal effects, autoregressive moving average models, forecasting, indicators, harmonic analysis, spectra.

Theory and practice of statistical prediction. Contemporary methods as extensions of classical methods. Topics: optimal prediction rules, the curse of dimensionality, empirical risk, linear regression and classification, basis expansions, regularization, splines, the bootstrap, model selection, classification and regression trees, boosting, support vector machines. Computational efficiency versus predictive performance. Emphasis on experience with real data and assessing statistical assumptions.

General theory of zero-sum, two-person games, including games in extensive form and continuous games, and illustrated by detailed study of examples.

Substantial student participation required. The topics to be covered each semester that the course may be offered will be announced by the middle of the preceding semester; see departmental bulletins. Recent topics include: Bayesian statistics, statistics and finance, random matrix theory, high-dimensional statistics.

This course will review the statistical foundations of randomized experiments and study principles for addressing common setbacks in experimental design and analysis in practice. We will cover the notion of potential outcomes for causal inference and the Fisherian principles for experimentation (randomization, blocking, and replications). We will also cover experiments with complex structures (clustering in units, factorial design, hierarchy in treatments, sequential assignment, etc). We will also address practical complications in experiments, including noncompliance, missing data, and measurement error.

A project-based introduction to statistical data analysis. Through case studies, computer laboratories, and a term project, students will learn practical techniques and tools for producing statistically sound and appropriate, reproducible, and verifiable computational answers to scientific questions. Course emphasizes version control, testing, process automation, code review, and collaborative programming. Software tools may include Bash, Git, Python, and LaTeX.

Explores the data science lifecycle: question formulation, data collection and cleaning, exploratory, analysis, visualization, statistical inference, prediction, and decision-making. Focuses on quantitative critical thinking and key principles and techniques: languages for transforming, querying and analyzing data; algorithms for machine learning methods: regression, classification and clustering; principles of informative visualization; measurement error and prediction; and techniques for scalable data processing. Research term project.

The course is designed as a sequence with with Statistics C205A/Mathematics C218A with the following combined syllabus. Measure theory concepts needed for probability. Expection, distributions. Laws of large numbers and central limit theorems for independent random variables. Characteristic function methods. Conditional expectations, martingales and martingale convergence theorems. Markov chains. Stationary processes. Brownian motion.

The topics of this course change each semester, and multiple sections may be offered. Advanced topics in probability offered according to students demand and faculty availability.

Introduction to modern theory of statistics; empirical processes, influence functions, M-estimation, U and V statistics and associated stochastic decompositions; non-parametric function estimation and associated minimax theory; semiparametric models; Monte Carlo methods and bootstrap methods; distributionfree and equivariant procedures; topics in machine learning. Topics covered may vary with instructor.

Course builds on 215A in developing critical thinking skills and the techniques of advanced applied statistics. Particular topics vary with instructor. Examples of possible topics include planning and design of experiments, ANOVA and random effects models, splines, classification, spatial statistics, categorical data analysis, survival analysis, and multivariate analysis.

The capstone project is part of the masters degree program in statistics. Students engage in professionally-oriented group research under the supervision of a research advisor. The research synthesizes the statistical, computational, economic, and social issues involved in solving complex real-world problems.

Theory of least squares estimation, interval estimation, and tests under the general linear fixed effects model with normally distributed errors. Large sample theory for non-normal linear models. Two and higher way layouts, residual analysis. Effects of departures from the underlying assumptions. Robust alternatives to least squares.

This course will review the statistical foundations of randomized experiments and study principles for addressing common setbacks in experimental design and analysis in practice. We will cover the notion of potential outcomes for causal inference and the Fisherian principles for experimentation (randomization, blocking, and replications). We will also cover experiments with complex structures (clustering in units, factorial design, hierarchy in treatments, sequential assignment, etc). We will also address practical complications in experiments, including noncompliance, missing data, and measurement error.

Standard nonparametric tests and confidence intervals for continuous and categorical data; nonparametric estimation of quantiles; robust estimation of location and scale parameters. Efficiency comparison with the classical procedures.

In this course, students will explore the data science lifecycle, including question formulation, data collection and cleaning, exploratory data analysis and visualization, statistical inference and prediction​, and decision-making.​ This class will focus on quantitative critical thinking​ and key principles and techniques needed to carry out this cycle. These include languages for transforming, querying and analyzing data; algorithms for machine learning methods including regression, classification and clustering; principles behind creating informative data visualizations; statistical concepts of measurement error and prediction; and techniques for scalable data processing.

This course is about statistical learning methods and their use for data analysis. Upon completion, students will be able to build baseline models for real world data analysis problems, implement models using programming languages and draw conclusions from models. The course will cover principled statistical methodology for basic machine learning tasks such as regression, classification, dimension reduction and clustering. Methods discussed will include linear regression, subset selection, ridge regression, LASSO, logistic regression, kernel smoothing methods, tree based methods, bagging and boosting, neural networks, Bayesian methods, as well as inference techniques based on resampling, cross validation and sample splitting.

A project-based introduction to statistical data analysis. Through case studies, computer laboratories, and a term project, students will learn practical techniques and tools for producing statistically sound and appropriate, reproducible, and verifiable computational answers to scientific questions. Course emphasizes version control, testing, process automation, code review, and collaborative programming. Software tools may include Bash, Git, Python, and LaTeX.

Special topics, by means of lectures and informational conferences.

Special topics, by means of lectures and informational conferences.

Discussion, problem review and development, guidance of laboratory classes, course development, supervised practice teaching.

Foundations of data science from three perspectives: inferential thinking, computational thinking, and real-world relevance. Given data arising from some real-world phenomenon, how does one analyze that data so as to understand that phenomenon? The course teaches critical concepts and skills in computer programming and statistical inference, in conjunction with hands-on analysis of real-world datasets, including economic data, document collections, geographical data, and social networks. It delves into social and legal issues surrounding data analysis, including issues of privacy and data ownership.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

An introduction to the R statistical software for students with minimal prior experience with programming. This course prepares students for data analysis with R. The focus is on the computational model that underlies the R language with the goal of providing a foundation for coding. Topics include data types and structures, such as vectors, data frames and lists; the REPL evaluation model; function calls, argument matching, and environments; writing simple functions and control flow. Tools for reading, analyzing, and plotting data are covered, such as data input/output, reshaping data, the formula language, and graphics models.

The course is designed primarily for those who are already familiar with programming in another language, such as python, and want to understand how R works, and for those who already know the basics of R programming and want to gain a more in-depth understanding of the language in order to improve their coding. The focus is on the underlying paradigms in R, such as functional programming, atomic vectors, complex data structures, environments, and object systems. The goal of this course is to better understand programming principles in general and to write better R code that capitalizes on the language's design.

This course develops the probabilistic foundations of inference in data science, and builds a comprehensive view of the modeling and decision-making life cycle in data science including its human, social, and ethical implications. Topics include: frequentist and Bayesian decision-making, permutation testing, false discovery rate, probabilistic interpretations of models, Bayesian hierarchical models, basics of experimental design, confidence intervals, causal inference, Thompson sampling, optimal control, Q-learning, differential privacy, clustering algorithms, recommendation systems and an introduction to machine learning tools including decision trees, neural networks and ensemble methods.

This course teaches a broad range of statistical methods that are used to solve data problems. Topics include group comparisons and ANOVA, standard parametric statistical models, multivariate data visualization, multiple linear regression, logistic regression and classification, regression trees and random forests. An important focus of the course is on statistical computing and reproducible statistical analysis. The course and lab include hands-on experience in analyzing real world data from the social, life, and physical sciences. The R statistical language is used.

An introduction to computationally intensive applied statistics. Topics will include organization and use of databases, visualization and graphics, statistical learning and data mining, model validation procedures, and the presentation of results.

An introduction to probability, emphasizing concepts and applications. Conditional expectation, independence, laws of large numbers. Discrete and continuous random variables. Central limit theorem. Selected topics such as the Poisson process, Markov chains, characteristic functions.

Random walks, discrete time Markov chains, Poisson processes. Further topics such as: continuous time Markov chains, queueing theory, point processes, branching processes, renewal theory, stationary processes, Gaussian processes.

An introduction to time series analysis in the time domain and spectral domain. Topics will include: estimation of trends and seasonal effects, autoregressive moving average models, forecasting, indicators, harmonic analysis, spectra.

Theory and practice of statistical prediction. Contemporary methods as extensions of classical methods. Topics: optimal prediction rules, the curse of dimensionality, empirical risk, linear regression and classification, basis expansions, regularization, splines, the bootstrap, model selection, classification and regression trees, boosting, support vector machines. Computational efficiency versus predictive performance. Emphasis on experience with real data and assessing statistical assumptions.

General theory of zero-sum, two-person games, including games in extensive form and continuous games, and illustrated by detailed study of examples.

Estimation, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, linear models, large sample theory, categorical models, decision theory.

Concepts in statistical programming and statistical computation, including programming principles, data and text manipulation, parallel processing, simulation, numerical linear algebra, and optimization.

In this course, students will explore the data science lifecycle, including question formulation, data collection and cleaning, exploratory data analysis and visualization, statistical inference and prediction​, and decision-making.​ This class will focus on quantitative critical thinking​ and key principles and techniques needed to carry out this cycle. These include languages for transforming, querying and analyzing data; algorithms for machine learning methods including regression, classification and clustering; principles behind creating informative data visualizations; statistical concepts of measurement error and prediction; and techniques for scalable data processing.

To be taken concurrently with service as a consultant in the department's drop-in consulting service. Participants will work on problems arising in the service and will discuss general ways of handling such problems. There will be working sessions with researchers in substantive fields and occasional lectures on consulting.

Special topics, by means of lectures and informational conferences.

Discussion, problem review and development, guidance of laboratory classes, course development, supervised practice teaching.

Discussion, problem review and development, guidance of laboratory classes, course development, supervised practice teaching.

Population and variables. Standard measures of location, spread and association. Normal approximation. Regression. Probability and sampling. Binomial distribution. Interval estimation. Some standard significance tests.

Foundations of data science from three perspectives: inferential thinking, computational thinking, and real-world relevance. Given data arising from some real-world phenomenon, how does one analyze that data so as to understand that phenomenon? The course teaches critical concepts and skills in computer programming and statistical inference, in conjunction with hands-on analysis of real-world datasets, including economic data, document collections, geographical data, and social networks. It delves into social and legal issues surrounding data analysis, including issues of privacy and data ownership.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

In this course, students will explore the data science lifecycle, including question formulation, data collection and cleaning, exploratory data analysis and visualization, statistical inference and prediction​, and decision-making.​ This class will focus on quantitative critical thinking​ and key principles and techniques needed to carry out this cycle. These include languages for transforming, querying and analyzing data; algorithms for machine learning methods including regression, classification and clustering; principles behind creating informative data visualizations; statistical concepts of measurement error and prediction; and techniques for scalable data processing.

An introduction to probability, emphasizing concepts and applications. Conditional expectation, independence, laws of large numbers. Discrete and continuous random variables. Central limit theorem. Selected topics such as the Poisson process, Markov chains, characteristic functions.

A comprehensive survey course in statistical theory and methodology. Topics include descriptive statistics, maximum likelihood estimation, non-parametric methods, introduction to optimality, goodness-of-fit tests, analysis of variance, bootstrap and computer-intensive methods and least squares estimation. The laboratory includes computer-based data-analytic applications to science and engineering.

Foundations of data science from three perspectives: inferential thinking, computational thinking, and real-world relevance. Given data arising from some real-world phenomenon, how does one analyze that data so as to understand that phenomenon? The course teaches critical concepts and skills in computer programming and statistical inference, in conjunction with hands-on analysis of real-world datasets, including economic data, document collections, geographical data, and social networks. It delves into social and legal issues surrounding data analysis, including issues of privacy and data ownership.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

For students with mathematical background who wish to acquire basic concepts. Relative frequencies, discrete probability, random variables, expectation. Testing hypotheses. Estimation. Illustrations from various fields.

An introduction to the R statistical software for students with minimal prior experience with programming. This course prepares students for data analysis with R. The focus is on the computational model that underlies the R language with the goal of providing a foundation for coding. Topics include data types and structures, such as vectors, data frames and lists; the REPL evaluation model; function calls, argument matching, and environments; writing simple functions and control flow. Tools for reading, analyzing, and plotting data are covered, such as data input/output, reshaping data, the formula language, and graphics models.

The course is designed primarily for those who are already familiar with programming in another language, such as python, and want to understand how R works, and for those who already know the basics of R programming and want to gain a more in-depth understanding of the language in order to improve their coding. The focus is on the underlying paradigms in R, such as functional programming, atomic vectors, complex data structures, environments, and object systems. The goal of this course is to better understand programming principles in general and to write better R code that capitalizes on the language's design.

In this connector course we will state precisely and prove results discovered while exploring data in Data 8. Topics include: probability, conditioning, and independence; random variables; distributions and joint distributions; expectation, variance, tail bounds; Central Limit Theorem; symmetries in random permutations; prior and posterior distributions; probabilistic models; bias-variance tradeoff; testing hypotheses; correlation and the regression model.

An introduction to linear algebra for data science. The course will cover introductory topics in linear algebra, starting with the basics; discrete probability and how prob- ability can be used to understand high-dimensional vector spaces; matrices and graphs as popular mathematical structures with which to model data (e.g., as models for term-document corpora, high-dimensional regression problems, ranking/classification of web data, adjacency properties of social network data, etc.); and geometric approaches to eigendecompositions, least-squares, principal components analysis, etc.

In this course, students will explore the data science lifecycle, including question formulation, data collection and cleaning, exploratory data analysis and visualization, statistical inference and prediction​, and decision-making.​ This class will focus on quantitative critical thinking​ and key principles and techniques needed to carry out this cycle. These include languages for transforming, querying and analyzing data; algorithms for machine learning methods including regression, classification and clustering; principles behind creating informative data visualizations; statistical concepts of measurement error and prediction; and techniques for scalable data processing.

This course develops the probabilistic foundations of inference in data science, and builds a comprehensive view of the modeling and decision-making life cycle in data science including its human, social, and ethical implications. Topics include: frequentist and Bayesian decision-making, permutation testing, false discovery rate, probabilistic interpretations of models, Bayesian hierarchical models, basics of experimental design, confidence intervals, causal inference, Thompson sampling, optimal control, Q-learning, differential privacy, clustering algorithms, recommendation systems and an introduction to machine learning tools including decision trees, neural networks and ensemble methods.