Probability theorist, econometrician, cultural economist
Automated research laboratory to study theoretical mathematics
Jožef Stefan Institute (AI) and School of Economics and Business, UL
YoungStatS Beyond and YSE
Royal Statistical Society
Bernoulli Soc., IMS, EMS, Econometric Soc., ISBA, SCI, ACEI
Image source: SPA 2025 conference Wrocław
I am candidate for member of the Council of the Royal Statistical Society. Vote for me until October 13 here!
I am candidate for Secretary of the Society for Causal Inference in mandate 2027-2030. Election information is about to follow.
This year's Keynote Discussion Meeting of the Royal Statistical Society was on Bayesian Statistics in Scientific Induction: A Decision Analysis Perspective. It took place as keynote of the RSS annual conference in Bournemouth in September.
Additionally, novel 2026 Call for discussion papers of the Royal Statistical Society is on the topic On the Roles of Statistics and Machine Learning in Large Language Models and Artificial Intelligence. Call has now been concluded.
Dobrodošli na predstavitveni strani Andreja Srakarja.
Welcome to the webpage of Andrej Srakar.
I work as a mathematician and artificial intelligence researcher at the Jožef Stefan Institute (currently shared between UNESCO IRCAI Institute and E3 Department of Artificial Intelligence) and econometrician and Assistant Professor at the School of Economics and Business, University of Ljubljana. Working on and finalizing my second PhD in mathematical statistics at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana. Fulbright scholar in economics, Indiana University Bloomington, United States (2011/12).
I increasingly include agents, LLMs and robots in my research work. This develops into an automated research laboratory to study theoretical mathematics with me, human, as "principal investigator".
I am holder and coordinator of ERC Perspectives Grant of the Slovenian ARIS research agency.
My main research interest is in probability theory and stochastic processes. Probability is still a developing area in theoretical mathematics with a lot of unexplored possibilities. In my research I study Schramm-Loewner evolution in high dimensions, free probability and random matrix theory, probability foundations of artificial intelligence algorithms using computer mathematics, Bayesian stochastic processes, causal and Bayesian causal stochastic processes, mathematical foundations of causality, econometric stochastic processes, cultural economic stochastic processes, symbolic data stochastic processes, and citizen science data stochastic processes. I enjoy in particular rich intellectual diversity and combinations of diverse mathematical and economic areas and views.
I am also very interested in "new mathematics" in times of artificial intelligence. I research in and using knowledge discovery methods, in particular statistics, for mathematical proof and other elements data.
I was recipient of the prize for best presentation for my article "Level densities for general β-ensembles: An operator-valued free probability perspective" at the New Researchers Workshop of the 10th Bernoulli-IMS World Congress in Probability and Statistics in Seoul, Korea in 2021.
I am currently coordinating two larger projects of online seminars and blogs:
YoungStatS Beyond - The blog and One World YoungStatS webinar of Young Statisticians Europe (YSE), operating in joint support of the Federation of the European National Statistical Societies (FENStatS), Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability, and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS)
Cultural Economics Online Seminar, Association for Cultural Economics International (as part of my tasks of the Communications Board of ACEI; in 2021 CEOS seminar was founded based on my initiative and proposal by the editors of EconomistsTalkArt.org blog)
Do get involved if interested and please write me an email on srakarandrej02(at)gmail(.)com.
YoungStatS project is aimed to involve young researchers in exploring the relevance and importance of inclusion of artificial intelligence in research in theoretical mathematics, as well as presenting and promoting recent leading literature in statistics and mathematics, organization of One World YoungStatS webinar series for younger scholars in these areas, and enhancing cooperations of younger scholars. Jointly with One World Probability seminar, One World YoungStatS it is the only online seminar series supported by both Bernoulli Society and the IMS.
I also coordinate present activities of the Young Statisticians Europe initiative itself.
I am also member and contributor to home and abroad citizen science initiatives. I try to communicate my findings and contribute to the scientific community at large. I think opening science and information/data is beneficial for scientists and general public.
Being an active fellow of the Royal Statistical Society for many years now, I am highly active within RSS as well, in particular as committee member of the RSS Emerging Applications section as well as one of the organizers of the legendary RSS Discussion Paper Meetings.
I try to be as active as possible in research that I perform. You will find me as an always active participant at the webinars of One World Probability, POPS, Percolation Today, Gary Chamberlain online seminar in econometrics, Online Causal Inference Seminar, Virtual Time Series Seminar, and different online seminars of the ISBA association. I have helped to initiate webinar series of One World YoungStatS, Cultural Economics Online Seminar Series and The SHARE International Seminar Series (SISS), naturally you will find me there, organizing and discussing as well.
Listen also to advices to young mathematicians by the 2024 Abel prize laureate Michel Talagrand.
I am writing a blog on my daily research and academic work. You can read my posts and follow it here.
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My current research interests lie in the following broad directions:
Stochastic Kodaira-Spencer processes and connections of complex analysis in high dimensions and probability theory: extensions of Schramm-Loewner evolution and related objects in d>=3; stochastic flows and flow deformations in complex manifolds; scaling limits and SLE with several complex variables; probability on complex manifolds (e.g. Calabi-Yau, Kähler, Stein, Oka); interacting particle systems and complex analysis in d=2 and d>2;
free probability tools to study random matrix ensembles: spectral and level densities for general beta ensembles; RMT and free probability; properties of Jacobi ensembles; point and set-valued processes for random matrix objects; probability measures for the study of random tensors; random matrix theory and percolation (FPP, LPP); epsilon-independence; Boolean freeness; cyclical and conditional cyclical freeness; free central limit theorems and asymptotics for non-commutative probability; concentration inequalities and free probability; traffic probability;
probability for artificial intelligence and computer science: central limit theorems for neural networks and deep and generative learning; neural networks as interacting particle systems; neural tangent kernel asymptotics for infinite-width neural networks; Bernstein-von Mises asymptotics for Bayesian machine learning problems; probability for model-free, error-driven and federated learning;
Bayesian stochastic processes and Bayesian probability: category-theoretical probability; Bayesian updating operators; scaling limit theory in Bayesian probability;
Causal stochastic processes and mathematical foundations of causality: generalization of graphical causality to continuous causal structures (e.g. stochastic flows); intersection of design-based and model-based causality;
Bayesian causal stochastic processes
Econometric stochastic processes: discrete choice and random utility; optimal transport;
Cultural economic stochastic processes: random dynamical systems; Cox-Ingersoll-Ross process on Riesz spaces;
Symbolic data stochastic processes: set-valued stochastic processes;
Citizen science data stochastic processes: self-interacting random walk processes.
My activities take part being among other member of European Mathematical Society, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability, Royal Statistical Society (I'm member of committee of the RSS Emerging Applications Section and the RSS Discussion Paper Meetings Committee), Econometric Society, European Economic Association, American Economic Association, International Association for Applied Econometrics, International Society for Bayesian Analysis, Society for Causal Inference, American Statistical Association, International Health Economics Association and Association for Cultural Economics International.
I'm an active member of Text, functional and other high-dimensional data in econometrics: New models, methods, applications (HiTEc - CA21163) COST action. This Action integrates cutting-edge analytic developments involving innovative sources of information, such as text, functions, perceptions or imprecise data, in econometrics. Within this action I perform active research on the bound of probability theory and high-dimensional econometrics and mathematical statistics.
Editor-in-chief of Review of Economics and Economic Methodology (REEM), indexed by EconLit. I am Editor of the Cultural Economics & the Creative Economy Book Series, published by Palgrave Macmillan. Book Series is at present the only book series in cultural economics on international level.
I am joint Coordinator of the Young Section of the Slovenian Statistical Society and active member of Young Statisticians Europe coordination.
I'm member of ERCIM Working Groups on Computational and Methodological Statistics (specialized team in Functional Data Analysis, http://www.cmstatistics.org/FDA.php) and Computational and Financial Econometrics.
As of May 2018, I have been continually listed among the top Slovenian economists by number of points, total research output and exceptional achievements in the main Slovenian research base SICRIS.
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UPCOMING YOUNGSTATS WEBINARS AND PUBLISHED BLOGPOSTS:
Third joint webinar of the New Researchers Group of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS), Young Data Science Researcher Seminar Zürich and the YoungStatS project was on Extrapolation to unseen domains: from theory to applications. For more details check this website.
Blogpost by Žikica Lukić and Bojana Milošević on "Characterization-based approach for construction of goodness-of-fit test for Lévy distribution"
Blogpost by Isa Marques, Thomas Kneib and Nadja Klein on "Non-stationary wrapped Gaussian spatial response model"
Blogpost by Anna Calissano, Aasa Feragen and Simone Vantini on "Populations of Unlabeled Networks: Graph Space Geometry and Generalized Geodesic Principal Components"
Blogpost by Mauro Bernardi, Antonio Canale and Marco Stefanucci on "Locally Sparse Functional Regression"
Current YoungStatS short written contributions-interview with Professor Susan Athey and contribution by Darryl Holm have been published in the January/February and March 2024 IMS Bulletin editions. Shorter YoungStatS written contributions are published in each second edition of the Bulletin.
CALL FOR PAPERS:
I co-edit special issue "Application of Fractals in Complex Networks of Technique and Medicine" for the journal Fractal and Fractional. Please submit your articles until May 25, 2023.
UPDATES:
I am candidate for member of the Council of the Royal Statistical Society. Vote for me until October 13 here!
I am candidate for Secretary of the Society for Causal Inference in mandate 2027-2030. Election information is about to follow.
I will be program committee member for next year's 24th International Conference on Cultural Economics of the Association for Cultural Economics International (ACEI), hosted by Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá.
I will conduct a 4-hour shortcourse on the Mathematical foundations of causality, for the American Causal Inference Conference (ACIC) 2027.
I am member of the program committee for the 2026 IMS International Conference on Statistics and Data Science (ICSDS 2026) in Split. In the framework of the conference, I will organize invited sessions on Probability and asymptotics for Bayesian causal inference.
My contribution "Bayesian Causal Coarse-Graining of Stochastic Network Processes" has been submitted to American Causal Inference Conference (ACIC) 2027 in Pittsburgh. Large causal systems are increasingly represented as dynamic networks of interacting stochastic processes. Often only a subset of components is of interest, requiring the rest to be eliminated or aggregated. Such coarse-graining can alter causal structure, induce latent dependence and temporal memory, and change intervention effects. We develop a probabilistic framework for determining when causal information is preserved under reduction.
My contribution "Calibrated Bayesian composite likelihood approach to Irpino-Verde linear histogram regression" will be presented in an invited session on symbolic data analysis for the ISI WC 2027 in Lusaka, Zambia.
I am recipient of a small European Research Council (ERC Perspectives) grant on the topic "Advancing economic impact in times of the artificial intelligence". The grant period is 2025-2027. Topic of the grant explores high-dimensional (d>2) limiting probabilistic processes and objects in a spatiotemporal stochastic context which arises when studying causal economic impact of any tourism event, and allows for my resubmission to ERC Consolidators Grant in 2026/2027.
For this year's 20th International Joint Conference on Computational and Financial Econometrics (CFE) and Computational and Methodological Statistics (CMStatistics), CFE-CMStatistics 2026, hosted by HTW Berlin, University of Applied Sciences, 12-14 December 2025, I will organize an organized invited session Econometrics of high-dimensional text data, and present my own contribution "Text difference-in-differences estimator".
I was Chair of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) for the 23rd European Young Statisticians Meeting (EYSM) 2023 under the auspices of the Bernoulli Society. Recordings from the event are published online. Book of Abstracts and Proceedings books are published online.
Recent contribution by YoungStatS project that I coordinate in the framework of Young Statisticians Europe (YSE), FENStatS, has been featured in the January/February 2025 edition of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) Bulletin.
I am Member of the committee and Meetings Secretary of the Emerging Applications Section of the Royal Statistical Society. Since 2023, I represent the section in the Discussion paper meetings committee of the RSS.
CONTRIBUTIONS:
My article "Short survey of results and open problems for parking problems on random trees" has been published on arXiv, section Probability.
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A (Statistics in Society) has published a Special issue on the Analysis of Citizen Science Data, containing contributions as outcomes of the 2023 RSS Call for Discussion Papers. I initiated and helped to coordinate the call. Special issue includes also my invited discussion contribution, read at the multi-paper discussion meeting at the 2024 RSS Conference in Brighton.
My article "Contribution to the Discussion of ‘Andrej Srakar’s contribution to the Discussion of 'Some statistical aspects of the Covid-19 response' by Wood et al" has been published in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A Statistics in Society.
My article "Andrej Srakar’s contribution to the Discussion of 'Methods for Estimating the Exposure-Response Curve to Inform the New Safety Standards for Fine Particulate Matter' by Cork et al" has been published in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A Statistics in Society.
My article "Contribution to the Discussion of 'Root and community inference on the latent growth process of a network’ by Crane and Xu" has been published in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B Statistical Methodology.
My article discussion contribution to Defining a Credible Interval Is Not Always Possible with “Point-Null” Priors: A Lesser-Known Correlate of the Jeffreys-Lindley Paradox (with Discussion) has been published in the Bayesian Analysis journal.
My article "Contribution to the Discussion of ‘Safe Testing’ by Grünwald, de Heide and Koolen" has been published by the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B Statistical Methodology.
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My contact details:
Andrej Srakar, PhD, PhDc
Research Fellow, UNESCO IRCAI Institute and Research Department E3 Artificial Intelligence, Jožef Stefan Institute
Lecturer, School of Economics and Business, University of Ljubljana
Program Committee Member, 2026 IMS International Conference on Statistics and Data Science (ICSDS), Split, Croatia
Joint Coordinator, Young Section (MSS), Statistical Society of Slovenia
Coordination Committee Member, Young Statisticians Europe (YSE), FENStatS
Coordinator, YoungStatS project, Young Statisticians Europe (YSE), FENStatS
Committee Member/Officer, Emerging Applications Section and Discussion Paper Meetings, Royal Statistical Society (RSS)
Co-organizer, RSS 2026 annual conference Keynote discussion meeting, Bournemouth, United Kingdom
Co-organizer, RSS 2027 annual conference Multi-paper discussion meeting, Newport, United Kingdom
International Organizational Committee Member, 24th European Young Statisticians Meeting (EYSM) Turin 2025, Bernoulli Society
Coordinator, Cultural Economics Online Seminar Series (CEOS), Association for Cultural Economics International (ACEI)
Member, Communications Board, Association for Cultural Economics International (ACEI)
Co-Editor, Cultural Economics & the Creative Economy Book Series, Palgrave Macmillan
Correspondent for Slovenia, Compendium of Cultural Policies & Trends, Bonn, Germany
Chair, TIAMSA Central and Eastern Europe Group, The International Art Market Studies Association
Editor, Review of Economics and Economic Methodology (REEM)
Jožef Stefan Institute / Inštitut "Jožef Stefan", Jamova cesta 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
GSM: +386 (0)40 298 504
F: +386 (0)1 5303 874
Mailto: andrej.srakar@ef.uni-lj.si , andrej.srakar@ijs.si
URL: https://ijs.si/ijsw/V001/JSI, http://www.ef.uni-lj.si/en