Statistics Colloquium: Zhou Fan

11:30 am–12:30 pm Jones 303

5747 S Ellis Avenue

Monday, October 20, 2025 at 11:30 AM in Jones 303, 5747 S Ellis Ave.
Zhou Fan, Department of Statistics and Data Science, at Yale University

Title: “Empirical Bayes Langevin dynamics in the linear model”

Abstract: In many applications of statistical estimation via sampling, one may wish to sample from a highdimensional target distribution that is adaptively evolving to the samples already seen. I will present an example of such dynamics in a Bayesian linear model, given by a Langevin diffusion for sampling from a posterior distribution that adapts to implement empirical Bayes learning of the prior. In this talk, I hope to discuss a positive result on nonparametric consistency for this empirical Bayes learning task, a motivation of these dynamics from a perspective of Wasserstein gradient flows, and a precise characterization of the dynamics in a mean-field setting of i.i.d. regression design.

Based on joint work with Yandi Shen, Leying Guan, Justin Ko, Bruno Loureiro, Yue M. Lu, and Yihong Wu.

Event Type

Statistics Colloquium, Seminars, Lectures

Oct 20