RTG 2300: Enrichment of European beech forests with conifers

Alejandro Pereira

Education

I did my Bachelor and Master in Statistics at the University of Valparaiso, Chile. My bachelor thesis focused on the theory and applicability of the bootstrap method in generalized additive models (GAMs), whereas in my master’s thesis we develop an Adaptive Kernel Density estimator using artificial data and derive some convergence speeds.
Since October 2023 I am a member of the RTG2300: Enrichment of European beech forests with conifers: impacts of functional traits on ecosystem functioning.

PhD Research Project

Semiparametric regression analysis is a fundamental statistical tool for determining how a measured variable is related to one or more potential explanatory variables. However, these methods assume that the data lies in a flat plane.
The aim of this project is to extend the semiparametric regression to include the case when our variables take values on nonlinear manifold.
We further explore Bayesian estimation procedures, manifold splines, and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. And apply these methods in the context of ecological and forestry data.