The New South Wales Branch of the Statistical Society of Australia invites you to a workshop on "Julia for Statistics" delivered by Mattias Villani, Stockholm University.
Date: Friday 6 November 2026
Times: 9:00 am - 1:00 pm AEDT
Venue: UNSW Sydney (exact details TBC)
Format: In person
Abstract: Julia for Statistics
Julia has emerged as an important language for statistical data analysis and machine learning. It is a high-level language that is easy to learn, but with a speed close to C/C++ from its just-in-time compilation. Despite its relatively young age, Julia already has an impressive set of libraries for statistics, and can be easily integrated with a workflow in R or Python. It is an excellent language for speeding up your statistical computations, and works well with AI coding.
This half-day tutorial/workshop introduces the Julia programming language with a focus on statistical analysis, including likelihood and Bayesian inference using the Turing.jl probabilistic programming ecosystem in Julia. The tutorial/workshop will present different aspects of Julia and demo some code where participants can follow along on their own computers. Time will however not allow for much own work/exercises, so be prepared to experiment by yourself after the workshop.
Key Learnings
The following topics will be covered/introduced:
- introduction to the Julia programming language and a bit of tooling
- the package manager
- managing data and plotting in Julia
- statistical distributions
- numerical optimization and automatic differentiation
- working with R and Python in Julia
- probabilistic programming with Turing.jl
Prerequisites:
- previous experience with at least basic programming in some language.
- some statistical knowledge, including maximum likelihood estimation and Bayesian inference.
Before the workshop:
Participants are encouraged to install Julia and some statistical packages beforehand, to follow along on their own laptops. Installation instructions are available at the workshop web page: https://mattiasvillani.com/Julia4Stats
Presenter Bio: Mattias Villani
Mattias Villani is Professor and chair of Statistics at Stockholm University, where he earned his PhD in Statistics in 2000 with a thesis on Bayesian cointegration under Daniel Thorburn. He was a senior lecturer at Stockholm University from 2003 to 2011 and, concurrently, a researcher and advisor at the Swedish central bank from 2004 to 2011, where he helped develop its two main models for macroeconomic forecasting and policy analysis. From 2011 to 2023 he was Professor of Statistics at Linköping University, where he built up the Statistics and Machine Learning division and broadened his applied work into neuroimaging, robotics and transportation, before returning to his alma mater in 2018. His research develops computationally efficient Bayesian methods for inference, prediction and decision making using flexible probabilistic models. He serves as associate editor for Bayesian Analysis and the CSDA Annals of Statistical Data Science, and is a keen programmer with a particular fondness for Julia.
Cancellation Policy:
Occasionally events have to be cancelled due to a lack of subscription. Early registration ensures that this will not happen.
Cancellations received prior to two weeks before the event will be refunded, minus the Stripe processing fee (1.75% + $0.30 per transaction) and an SSA administration fee of $20.
From then onward no part of the registration fee will be refunded. However, registrations are transferable within the same organisation. Please advise any changes to events@statsoc.org.au.
@StatSocAus
