Juntong Chen

About me

I am currently a tenure-track assistant professor in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Xiamen University. Prior to this, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Twente, working with Johannes Schmidt-Hieber. Before that, I completed my Ph.D. studies at the University of Luxembourg under the supervision of Yannick Baraud in 2023, and I also spent 5.5 months there as a postdoctoral researcher. 

Earlier, I participated in the Erasmus Mundus joint master program MathMods, during which I had the opportunity to study in Italy, Germany, and France. In 2014, I obtained my bachelor's degree in mathematics and applied mathematics at Xiamen University in China. 

My research mainly focuses on statistical learning theories for neural networks, robust estimation, nonparametric regression, and change-point detection.  

Publications and preprints

[1] Estimating a regression function in exponential families by model selection. Published in Bernoulli, 30(2), 1669–1693.

[2] Robust estimation of a regression function in exponential families. (with Yannick Baraud).  Published in J. Stat. Plan. Inference, 233, 106167.

[3] Robust nonparametric regression based on deep ReLU neural networks. Published in J. Stat. Plan. Inference, 233, 106182.

[4] Understanding the effect of GCN convolutions in regression tasks. (with Johannes Schmidt-Hieber, Claire Donnat and Olga Klopp).  AISTATS 2025.

[5] Robust estimation in exponential families: from theory to practice. (Ph.D. dissertation, winner of the 2023 Excellent Thesis Award of the University of Luxembourg) 

[6] Estimator selection for regression functions in exponential families with application to change point detection. 

[7] A novel statistical approach to analyze image classification. (with Sophie Langer and Johannes Schmidt-Hieber).

[8] On the expressivity of deep Heaviside networks. (with Insung Kong,  Sophie Langer and Johannes Schmidt-Hieber.)

Talks

• RSS International Conference 2024 in Brighton, UK (09/2024, link)

• Scientific event on Statistical and probabilistic analysis of random networks and processes in Nice, France (09/2024, link)

• 2024 International Conference on Frontiers of Data Science in Hangzhou, China (07/2024, link)

• The 2nd Joint Conference on Statistics and Data Science in Kunming, China (07/2024, link)

• International Conference on Statistics and Related Fields in Bertinoro, Italy (06/2024,  link)

• The 6th ISNPS in Braga, Portugal (06/2024, link)

• Seminar Series on the Mathematics of Data Science, University of Twente (02/2023, link)

• 3-day Meeting of Statisticians in Paris (07/2022, link)

• 2022 IMS Annual Meeting, London (06/2022)

• 5th ISNPS 2022, Cyprus (06/2022, link)

Teaching

Statistical Techniques for TCS/BIT - University of Twente

• Winter semester 1B block of 2023

• Providing lectures and tutoring for undergraduate students majoring in computer science and business information technology

Analysis for Applications I - University of Luxembourg

• Winter semesters of 2020, 2021 and 2022

• Providing exercise classes for undergraduate students in computer science

Math Forge - University of Luxembourg

• Winter and summer semesters of 2019

• Offering mathematical consulting service to university students from different departments