STAtistical Methods for the Physical Sciences Research Center - Kelly Moran
September 18, 2026 1:30PM—2:30PM
Location:
In Person and Virtua - ET
-
Baher Hall 232M and Zoom
Speaker:
KELLY MORAN,
Staff Scientist, Statistics Group, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Visiting Professor 2026-2027, Carnegie Mellon University
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=IJIkyUgAAAAJ&hl=en
In this talk, I will present three vignettes from collaborative work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The first uses Bayesian modeling to characterize source temperature and emission profiles from inertial-confinement-fusion diagnostics. The second develops a statistical pipeline to turn measurements from a compact sensor flown on the International Space Station into meaningful ionospheric signal. The third builds statistical emulators to learn about the universe from computationally expensive cosmological simulations. Across the examples, I will focus on the interplay between scientific objectives, statistical modeling, uncertainty, and close collaboration with domain experts.
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Kelly R. Moran is a staff scientist in the Statistics Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she develops statistical methods for scientific problems ranging from space physics to public health. Her work focuses on using tools such as Gaussian processes, emulation and calibration, and uncertainty quantification to learn from complex experiments, noisy observations, and large-scale simulations. She earned her Ph.D. in Statistical Science from Duke University as a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellow. During the 2026–27 academic year, she is a visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University, where she is particularly interested in building new collaborations and working with and supporting students.
In Person and Zoom Participation. See announcement.
⇢ See website for information on participating remotely.
For More Information:
ebensen@stat.cmu.edu