Dr Szymon Urbas
Biography
2024–present: Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Statistics, Maynooth University
2022–2024: Postdoctoral Researcher in Statistics, University College Dublin
2018–2022: PhD in Statistics, Lancaster University
2017–2018: MRes in Statistics and Operational Research, Lancaster University
2013–2017: BSc in Mathematical Science, University of Galway
Research interests:
- Bayesian modelling and inference
- Computationally intensive methods
- High-dimensional data
- Applications in agriculture and animal welfare
Research Interests
Most of my research revolves around developing bespoke Bayesian models—often involving latent variables—as well as their inference. Much of the modelling arises from problems encountered in the agri-food sector, where high-dimensional data exhibit complex hierarchical correlations between individual samples; for example, measurements on animals from the same herd.
Other areas in which I have worked and have a keen interest are: clinical trial operations, computationally intensive methods (Hamiltonian Monte Carlo, particle filters) and variational inference methodologies applied to machine learning problems.
Peer Reviewed Journal
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Szymon Urbas; Pierre Lovera; Robert Daly; Alan O'Riordan; Donagh Berry; Isobel Claire Gormley (2024) 'Predicting milk traits from spectral data using Bayesian probabilistic partial least squares regression'. Annals of Applied Statistics, . [DOI] | |
| 2023 | Chris Sherlock; Szymon Urbas; Matthew Ludkin (2023) 'The Apogee to Apogee Path Sampler'. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2022 | Szymon Urbas; Chris Sherlock; Paul Metcalfe (2022) 'Interim recruitment prediction for multi-center clinical trials'. Biostatistics, . [Link] [DOI] |