Johan Pensar

Academic interests

At a general level, my research interests are focused around developing and applying statistical and machine learning methods for real-world applications. Some key topics are:

• Statistical machine learning

• Probabilistic graphical models

• Network structure learning

• Computational causal inference

• Statistical genomics

Background

I completed my PhD in statistics in 2016 at Åbo Akademi University (Finland), in which I developed a new class of probabilistic graphical models, along with algorithms for learning the structure of the models from data. During 2016-2020, I worked as a postdoc at University of Helsinki (Finland), developing and applying data analysis tools, primarily for applications in bacterial statistical genomics. Since February 2020, I have been working at UiO as an Associate Professor in Statistics and Data Science. 

Teaching

• STK4011 - Statistical Inference Theory  (Autumn 2020).
• STK4290 - Probabilistic Graphical Models (Spring 2021).

Supervision (PhD students)

Main supervisor:

• Anders Hjort (Department of Mathematics, Eiendomsverdi AS, 2020-): Uncertainty in house price prediction (Industrial PhD).

Co-supervisor:

• Juri Kuronen (Department of Biostatistics, 2018-): High-dimensional structure learning of Markov networks with applications in bacterial statistical genomics.
• Ghadi Al Hajj (Department of Informatics, 2020-): Improving generalization of machine learning models in medical image and immune receptor sequence analysis through the incorporation of domain priors and constraints.

Awards

Finnish Statistical Society - Doctoral Thesis Award (2013-2016).

Publications

For a complete list, see my profile at Google Scholar.