The Hierarchical Modelling and Bayesian Statistics course will be offered in April in Santa Maria.

The course is one and a half week long with hands-on activities and classes from 8 AM until 6 PM with a lunch break in the middle of the day.

This year, the course will be offered in Silveira Martins, a nearby city. The students will have housing in the spot at no cost.

At the end of the course, attendees are expected to use Hierarchical Bayesian models in their own research project. However, I do not expect students to know advanced stats at the beginning. Instead, we will go the long road from probability theory all the way to using Bayesian stats. Along this way, students will be able to create their own Generalized Linear Model using only the basic package in R (common functions), implement basic occupancy models using a frequentist (Maximum Likelihood) approach, and much more. For every bit of information, we will use tons of ecological examples, make some fun calculations by hand, and practice in R.

Some popular topics that will be cover in this course are:

• Probability rules

• Maximum Likelihood calculations and optimization

• P-values (and the problems with p-values)

• Occupancy models (basics)

• Generalized Mixed Effect Models with single and multiple random effects

• Bayes theorem, prior and posterior probability

• JAGs/BUGS programming

• Implementation of self-designed models both using ML and Bayesian Statistics

If you are interested in participating, send me an e-mail or message (check the Contact Me tab). The course will have a maximum of 20 participants.

Click here to see the course Syllabus (only in Portuguese)