Seminars

This seminar series aims to develop early-career doctoral supervisors in the Statistical Sciences to be more effective in guiding doctoral candidates to successful graduation while providing a more holistic and accessible experience for students as they transition into academia. The project's key objectives are to:

1. Cultivate effective and efficient doctoral supervisors in the Statistical Sciences.

2. Better equip doctoral students for both corporate and academic career paths.

3. Strengthen collaboration across various departments in South Africa, including operations research, data science, and universities of technology.

Most importantly, this initiative seeks to reach doctoral candidates in the Statistical Sciences across South Africa, expanding the base of expertise and fostering networks among emerging supervisors and researchers nationwide.

The online seminar series, which began in 2023, has covered various themes aimed at creating a platform for transitioning into a more sustainable era of academic statistics. These sessions have featured 

1. Presentations by academics from tertiary institutions across South Africa, showcasing their Statistics departments, highlighting their programs in Statistics and Data Science, departmental staffing, and overall structure. They also shared the challenges faced within their departments and discussed effective practices that contribute to their success.

2. Contributions from senior supervisors in the Statistics community providing valuable insights into their experiences and perspectives. In these sessions, senior supervisors shared brief overviews of their academic journeys, reflecting on how they began their careers in supervision. They discussed best practices for effective doctoral supervision, offering practical strategies for supporting students through the research process. Additionally, they provided guidance and advice tailored to novice supervisors, helping them navigate common challenges and build confidence in their supervisory roles.

3. Emerging researcher seminars for early- and mid-career academics to showcase their research and share their experience of how their research careers started, providing valuable advice and guidance for other academics. 

4. A panel seminar on "Teaching in the current era of the Statistics discipline – how to deal with large classes and ensure critical thinking" which covered topics on large classes, coding vs. real data vs. theory, postgraduate teaching, assessment practices, and critical thinking.

This year, in response to the exponential growth of generative AI in academia and further afield, StatSNetSA is initiating AI coffee talks every second Friday 12:00 – 12:30 online. We invite academics and postgraduate students to informally tell us about an AI tool they have used, or a use case by themselves or students – in a nutshell anything about AI that is interesting, fun or alarming.  If you'd like to be added to the mailing list or are interested in sharing your experience, please email Inger at inger.fabris-rotelli@up.ac.za. These sessions are very informal—no need to prepare a presentation, just come and tell everyone about your experience! 

Keep an eye on our StatSNetSA LinkedIn page for upcoming seminars.