• ​Topic: Statistics from Stone Age to Digital Age
• Date: 31 July 2025
• Time: 17:30 – 18:30 followed by light refreshments
• Venue: Van Der Sterr building, Room 1046

What you’ll learn:

The modern development of Statistics into a science coincides with the faculty’s centenary since 1925 is often considered the year that Statistics became a coherent discipline. The talk will use this as a point of departure and give a brief overview of some of the further development of Statistics and its application, to recent years where modern Statistics has become intricately linked with high-performance computing and algorithmic innovation. Grounding algorithms in classical mathematical principles preserves rigour and interpretability, while computational advances enable them to scale and adapt to complex data. These developments and their reliance on developments in Mathematics will be illustrated with Extreme Value Theory, our own area of research.

About the speakers:

Prof Tertius de Wet has been a Professor at Stellenbosch University since 2000. Prior to that he was at the Institute for Maritime Technology for 18 years. He received his tertiary education at Potchefstroom University, now Northwest University, where he was a senior lecturer before being appointed as professor at Rhodes University. His research since returning to academia in 2000 has mostly been in Extreme Value Theory and Campanometry, both areas that he is still actively involved in. He is a past editor of the South African Statistical Journal, an elected member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) since 1986 and a past associate editor of the ISI journal International Statistical Review.

Matthys Lucas Steyn is a data science lecturer at the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Stellenbosch University, specialising in machine learning, optimisation, and deep learning. He obtained a joint PhD in Mathematical Statistics from Stellenbosch University and Bioscience Engineering (Mathematical Modelling) from Ghent University, Belgium. His research focusses on exploring innovative approaches to combine deep learning and extreme value theory for open-set recognition.

RSVP by 28 July 2025 by clicking on this link: https://forms.office.com/r/unUqM217va