Teachig

Undergraduate Teaching

I enjoy teaching introductory courses in probability and statistics. While at the University of California Santa Cruz I created two introductory courses that became quite popular.. The first course was Gambling and Gaming, which I offered for the first time in the Fall of 2009. Gambling and Gaming uses casino games such as roulette, kino and blackjack, as well as games of strategy such as poker, chess and tic-tac-toe to introduce students to probability, statistics and decision theory. Out of an effort to create material that for this course was born a textbook

Rodriguez, A. and Mendes, B. (2017) Gambling and Gaming: A Gentle Introduction to Probability, Statistics and Game Theory. Wiley.

The second course is The Art of Data Visualization, which I offered for the first time in 2014. This course was targeted at students from the humanities and the arts, and combines concepts from statistics, design, and cognitive psychology.

At the University of Washington I have taught Elements of Statistical Methods, a large non-calculus introduction to statistics.

Graduate Teaching

I have taught a variety of M.S.- and Ph.D.-level courses in statistics covering classical and Bayesian inference, linear and generalized linear models, stochastic processes and Bayesian nonparametric models. At the University of Californi, Santa Cruz I was also heavily involved in the development of graduate programs, including the M.S./Ph.D. program in Statistics, the M.S. in Natural Language Processing, and the Designated Emphasis in Data Science.

Coursera

When I was at the University of California Santa Cruz I created a class for Coursera on Mixture Models.

Short Courses

Over the years I have taught a number of short courses, usually in the context of various conferences:

  • Applied Bayesian Computational Methods, Joint Statistical Meetings 2017, Baltimore.

  • An Introduction to R and Data Visualization, 2016 Conference on Applied Statistics in Defense (CASD), Washington, D.C.

  • Bayesian Computation, 2016 ISBA World Meeting, Sardinia, Italy.

  • The Art of Data Visualization, Joint Statistical Meetings 2015, Seattle.

  • Bayesian statistical methods - Congreso Bayesiano de América Latina (COBAL) 2015, Medellin, Colombia.

  • Nonparametric Bayesian methods, 2014 ISBA World Meeting, Cancun, Mexico.

  • Modern Computational Methods for Bayesian Statistics, Second Latin American School on Bayesian Statistics, Chetumal, Mexico.

  • Bayesian Nonparametric Methods, 2013 Joint Statistical Meetings, Montreal, Canada.

  • Bayesian Nonparametric Methods, Veracruz, Mexico.

  • Bayesian nonparametric methods, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

  • Bayesian Nonparametric Methods, 2009 Joint Statistical Meeting, Washington, DC.