The NSW Branch of the Statistical Society of Australia are happy to announce the 78th (2026) Annual General Meeting (AGM), to be followed by the Lancaster Lecture to be given by Branch President Dr Boris Beranger. The event will be held on Tuesday 24th March, commencing at 5:00 pm (AEDT) at the University of Technology Sydney. We hope to see you all there!
Date: Tuesday 24th March 2026
Time - AGM: 5:00pm - 5:30pm (AEDT) followed by light refreshments
Time - Lancaster Lecture: 6:00pm - 7:00pm (AEDT)
Time - Dinner: 7:00pm onwards (see further details below)
Venue: UTS Building 7 Level 2. Green Theatre CB07.02.025
In person only event
Note that attending the dinner requires a separate RSVP - please register prior to the event.
Lecture Title: Extremes Without Borders: Multivariate and Spatial Perspectives
Extreme events such as floods, heatwaves, or severe pollution episodes can have devastating consequences. Assessing the risk of events that are more severe than those observed in historical data is therefore a crucial challenge in many fields, from environmental science to finance.
In practice, evaluating these risks is complex because extreme events rarely involve a single variable or occur at a single location. For instance, understanding extreme pollution levels in Sydney requires studying several pollutants simultaneously and how they interact during high-pollution episodes. Likewise, extreme events often affect entire regions rather than isolated locations. The catastrophic flooding that struck northern New South Wales in February–March 2022, particularly in Lismore, illustrates how extreme rainfall can occur across large spatial areas.
From a statistical perspective, predicting events beyond the range of observed data is far from straightforward. Extreme Value Theory provides a framework for analysing and extrapolating rare events. In this lecture, we will introduce the key ideas behind modelling multivariate and spatial extremes, discuss the principles that underpin these models, and highlight recent developments that allow more realistic and computationally efficient approaches. We will conclude with a discussion of emerging challenges and future research directions.
Presenter: Dr Boris Beranger
Boris Beranger obtained a PhD in Statistics from Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris 6) and UNSW Sydney in 2016. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at UNSW Sydney. His research focuses on Extreme Value Theory, particularly with applications to environmental problems, and more broadly on the statistical analysis of complex data. He also develops statistical methods for analysing aggregated or summary data and has recently developed an interest in meta-analysis.
Any questions, please contact: secretary.nswbranch@statsoc.org.au
@StatSocAus
