During his PhD research, mathematician Tyron Lardy worked on a new approach to hypothesis testing. Instead of the traditional p-value, he uses so-called e-values. These turn out to be more flexible – especially when you want to look at your results midway through the study.

Data theory research on the analysis on the multidimensional data

Promotor: A.W. van der Vaart

PhD candidate Daniël Gomon has developed statistical methods that could significantly improve research in fields like medicine and demography. ‘Mathematicians don’t like unrealistic assumptions,’ he says. Gomon will defend his PhD thesis on 19 June.

Missing legends, illogical connections or three-dimensional graphs. There are many ways in which data can deceive. Five students took up the fight against misleading statistics. Their lesson series can now be found online.

Marta Fiocco, professor at the Mathematical Institute, has received a grant for predicting survival outcome and improving the balance between prognosis and quality of life for soft tissue sarcoma patients (Personalised Sarcoma Care).

Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics Jacqueline Meulman received an honorary membership during the annual meeting of the Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research (VVSOR). This makes her the eleventh honorary member of the society.

How do forensic scientists deal with complex DNA-evidence found at crime scenes? Giulia Cereda developed new statistical models to analyse them. PhD defense 12 January.

Electoral Systems and Turnout: Evidence From a Regression Discontinuity Design. In this article, published on the website SAGE research methods, authors Jaroslaw Kantorowicz and Tobias M. Hlobil discuss how a Regression Discontinuity Design can be executed.

Today, CBS launches the Center for Big Data Statistics (CBDS), a cooperation of an unprecedented scale in the field of Big Data. Leiden University and HumanityX are key partners.

United Nations Global Pulse, an initiative of the UN Secretary-General on big data and AI, recently launched the Data Fellows program. Kevin Duisters, PhD in Statistics at the Mathematical Institute, was selected to take part in its first cohort of eight international students.

Using mathematics to help children with bone cancer. It sounds a little strange, but for statistician Marta Fiocco, it's just her job. She gets a substantial grant from KiKa for it. With that money, she is going to study the effect of chemotherapy adjustments.

Doctors are there to diagnose and treat people. But sometimes a diagnosis can’t be made or doctors differ in opinion. Luckily, Alireza Mashaghi Tabari and his research team have developed a new framework to solve medical diagnostic problems. This framework can also be applied to many other research…

After the summer, the SPSS statistics programme will be replaced by the new ‘R’ software for first year students. Hemmo Smit and Sjoerd Huisman, both lecturers in Methodology and Statistics, initiated this major change in the curriculum. That did not happen overnight.

The Sanquin blood bank gathers data on every donation. Around 720,000 donations are made every year. ‘That generates a mountain of highly valuable data,’ says Leiden PhD candidate Marieke Vinkenoog.

Using mathematics to determine whether scientific results are significant or not. Peter Grünwald, full professor of Statistical Learning at the Mathematical Institute (MI) and senior researcher in the Machine Learning group of Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant…

Assistant Professor Lucie Zicha at Leiden University College (LUC) in The Hague is on a mission to bring statistical literacy to all undergraduate students.

Why use Google Maps when you can also calculate your bike route based on your own data. Statistician and cyclist Alexander Dürre sees statistics in everything around him. He analyses data of soccer games and calculates the possible winners of cycling races. ‘When I have too much time, I apply statistics…

Are you keen to beat your friends or colleagues and win the European Championship football pool? Statistician Marjolein Fokkema has some tips that might increase your chances.

As of 1 April 2025, Professor E.A.L.M.G (Elke) Moons has been appointed professor by special appointment of the chair ‘Crime Statistics’ at Leiden University’s Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology at Leiden Law School.

The main methodological aspects of the use of stepwise LCA estimators under different circumstances.

The ultimate goal of cosmologists is to find a cosmological model able to explain the current observational data.

'Frans Rodenburg is an excellent teacher who is able to convey difficult information,' say his students. In his statistics classes, he wants to make students enthusiastic for his beloved subject. 'Most students are convinced that statistics is not for them. I am here to convince them otherwise.' Rodenburg…

Promotor: P.D. Grünwald

Prof. dr. Aad van der Vaart has been appointed as Scientific Director of the Mathematical Institute of Leiden University on Tuesday 15 September 2015. He succeeds prof. dr. Peter Stevenhagen who has been a dedicated Scientific Director of the Mathematical Institute as from 2007.

In this project we study the properties of statistical- and rule-learning mechanisms in relation to the acquisition and evolution of language. We ask to what extent these mechanisms are unique to humans - or to human language - by comparing the acquisition of vocal structure in two species: humans (infants)…

In this work, we attempt to answer the question:

Promotor: W.Th.F. den Hollander, Co-promotor: F.R. Nardi

Graduation Ceremony

Classical statistical methods, such as p-values, are difficult for researchers to apply correctly. They for example do not allow drawing conclusions from a study early, or for extending a study with extra research groups that want to make their data available later.

Promotores: P. Stevenhagen, E. Fouvry (Univeriste Paris Saclay)

This dissertation studies the Asymptotics of Bayesian nonparametric inference for Gaussian linear models.

Alumni event

Alumni event

This thesis is based on five papers on several topics.

Aad van der Vaart, professor of stochastics at Leiden University, has been awarded the NWO Spinoza Prize for his groundbreaking research in statistics. Van der Vaart conducts fundamental research on models that can help, for instance, to identify genes that play a role in cancer.

The master's specialisation Methodology and Statistics in Psychology consists of three main parts: the mandatory and elective courses, a thesis and an internship.