1. No category

Cristiano Varin
(last updated October 2014)
Born in Gorizia (Italy) on the 14th of May, 1974. Nationality: Italian.
General Information
Address
Department of Environmental Sciences,
Informatics and Statistics (DAIS)
Ca’ Foscari University
San Giobbe, Cannaregio, 873
30121 Venice, Italy
Phone: +39 041 2347411
Direct: +39 041 2347439
Fax: +39 041 2347444
E-mail: cristiano.varin@unive.it
Web: http://cristianovarin.weebly.com
Positions Held
Jan 2011 – today
Assistant Professor
DAIS, Ca’ Foscari University
Feb 2007 – Dec 2010
Assistant Professor
Department of Statistics, Ca’ Foscari University
Feb 2007
Visiting Professor
MAP 5, Paris Descartes University
Jul 2005 – Jan 2007
Associate Researcher
Department of Statistics, University of Padova
Feb 2005 – Jun 2005
Associate Researcher
Department of Statistics, University of Udine
Aug 2003 – Dec 2004
Associate Researcher
Department of Statistics, University of Padova
Feb 2003 – Jul 2003
Associate Researcher
Department of Statistics, University of Udine
Education
Feb 2014 – Feb 2018
Italian Habilitation Associate Professor in Statistics
Oct 1999 – Feb 2003
PhD in Statistics
Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Padova
Thesis title: Composite Likelihood Inference in Geostatistics
Supervisor: Prof. G. Masarotto
Oct 1994 – Jul 1999
Laurea in Social Statistics and Demography
Faculty of Statistical Sciences, University of Padova
Thesis title: Automatic Galaxy Classification (in Italian)
Score 110/110 cum laude
Supervisor: Prof. A.C. Capelo
Co-supervisors: Prof. G. Masarotto, Dr. R. Smareglia
Computing Skills
C (good), LATEX(advanced), R (advanced)
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Cristiano Varin
Languages
Italian (mother tongue), English (fluent)
Research
Research Interests
Applied Statistics; Likelihood Methods; Meta-Analysis; Statistical Modelling; R Programming
Awards
Gumbel Lecture 2006: On Composite Marginal Likelihood Inference for Hierarchical Models
The Gumbel Lecture is a special plenary named lecture annually awarded to a young statistician by
the German Statistical Society
Main Collabortions
N. Reid (University of Toronto), G. Yi (University of Waterloo)
Likelihood and extensions (monograph)
A. Guolo (University of Verona), I. Kosmidis (University College London)
Advanced methods for meta-analysis
C. Agostinelli (Ca’ Foscari University )
Robust likelihood inference
C. Gaetan (Ca’ Foscari University)
Computational efficient likelihood methods for large dimensional spatial data
C. Agostinelli (Ca’ Foscari University ), C. Barbante and researchers Institute CNR-IDEP
Multi-proxy reconstruction of Italian past 2000 years temperature
M. Cattelan (University of Padova), D. Firth (University of Warwick)
Modelling paired-comparison data
M. Cattelan (University of Padova)
Marginal modelling of spatially clustered binary data
Visiting Periods (at least one week)
2011
Department Statistics, University of Toronto
2009
Department of Statistics, University of Warwick
2008
MAP5, Paris Descartes University
2007
Department of Statistics, University of Warwick
MAP5, Paris Descartes University
2006
Center for Mathematics, Technische Universität München
Department of Statistics, University of Warwick
2005
Department of Statistics, University of Warwick
2002
Norwegian Computing Center, Oslo
2001
Norwegian Computing Center, Oslo
Graduate Students and Post-docs Supervision
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Cristiano Varin
2008 – 2011
M. Bevilacqua (Post-doc) Estimating equations and composite likelihoods for
dependent data, co-supervisor N. Sartori
2006 – 2009
M. Cattelan (PhD thesis in Statistics) Correlation models for paired comparison
data, co-supervisor A. Salvan
Research Grants
2013 – 2014
IRIDE, DAIS individual research grant, Ca’ Foscari University: Development of
flexible methods for nonlinear modelling of dependent data
2009 – 2012
PRIN 2008: Approximate likelihood methods for complex dependence structures
Coordinator: Prof. P. Vidoni. Role: member local research unit
2008 – 2011
Cariparo project: ML2: Modified likelihood methods for evaluating the effects of
the mobility lists program in the Veneto region
Coordinator: Prof. E. Battistin. Role: investigator
2007 – 2009
PRIN 2006: New likelihood methods for complex models
Coordinator: Prof. P. Vidoni. Role: member local research unit
2005 – 2007
PRIN 2004: Trattamento statistico della complessità e dell’incertezza negli studi
ambientali
Coordinator: Prof. D. Cocchi. Role: member local research unit
2003 – 2005
PRIN 2002: Statistica nel supporto alla decisione ambientale: identificazione,
monitoraggio e valutazione di intervento
Coordinator: Prof. D. Cocchi. Role: member local research unit
2002
3-months Norwegian Council of Research research grant:
A comparison of estimation procedures useful in spatial statistics
Scientific supervisor: Prof. N.L. Hjort
2001 – 2003
PRIN 2000: Statistica nella valutazione del rischio ambientale
Coordinator: Prof. G. Lovison. Role: member local research unit
2000 – 2002
3-years Ph.D. scholarship, University of Padova
Research Networks
2013 – 2018
Research Partner EPSRC programme i-like http://www.i-like.org.uk
Memberships
2014 –
Venice International Center for Climate Change Studies
2013 –
Center for Estuarine and Coastal Marine Sciences, Ca’ Foscari University
2010 –
American Statistical Association
2010 –
Institute of Mathematical Statistics
2008 –
Royal Statistical Society
2008 – 2013
Center for Research in Statistical Methodology, University of Warwick
Publications
Journals
Varin C., Cattelan M., and Firth D. (2014). Statistical modelling of citation exchange among
statistics journals. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, to appear.
Cristiano Varin
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Guolo A. and Varin C. (2014). Beta regression for time series analysis of bounded data, with
application to Canada Google Flu Trends. Annals of Applied Statistics 8 (1), 74-88.
Cravero F., Varin C., and Malavasi S. (2014). Moon-related reproductive patterns in transitional
habitats: insights from a Mediterranean killifish inhabiting North Adriatic saltmarshes. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 139 (20), 60–66.
Cattelan M. and Varin C. (2013). Hybrid pairwise likelihood analysis of animal behavior experiments. Biometrics 69 (4), 1002–1011.
Spolaor A., Gabrieli J., Martma T., Kohler J., Bjørkman M., Isaksson E., Varin C., Vallelonga P.,
Plane J.M.C., and Barbante C. (2013). Sea ice dynamics influence halogen deposition to
Svalbard. The Cryosphere 7, 1645–1658.
Spolaor A., Vallelonga P., Plane J.M.C., Kehrwald N., Gabrieli J., Varin C., Turetta C., Cozzi G.,
Boutron C., and Barbante C. (2013). Halogen species record Antarctic sea ice extent over
glacial-interglacial periods. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 13, 6623–6635.
Spolaor A., Vallelonga P., Cozzi G., Gabrieli J., Varin C., Kehrwald N., Zennaro P., Boutron C.,
and Barbante C. (2013). Iron speciation in aerosol dust influences iron bioavailability over
glacial-interglacial timescales. Geophysical Research Letters 40, 1618–1623.
Cattelan M., Varin C., and Firth D. (2013). Dynamic Bradley-Terry modelling of sport tournaments. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series C 62 (1), 135–150.
Masarotto G. and Varin C. (2012). The ranking lasso and its application to sport tournaments.
Annals of Applied Statistics 4, 1949–1970.
Masarotto G. and Varin C. (2012). Gaussian copula marginal regression. Electronic Journal of
Statistics 6 (4), 1517–1549.
Guolo A. and Varin C. (2012). The R package metaLik for likelihood inference in meta-analysis.
Journal of Statistical Software 50 (7), 1–14.
Varin C., Reid N., and Firth D. (2011). An overview of composite likelihood methods. Statistica
Sinica 21 (1), 5–42.
Lupi P., Manenti F.M., Scialà A., and Varin C. (2011). On the assessment of regulators’ efficiency.
An application to european telecommunications. Info 13 (1), 61–73.
Varin C. and Czado, C. (2010). A mixed autoregressive probit model for ordinal longitudinal data.
Biostatistics 11 (1), 127–138.
Varin C. and Vidoni P. (2009). Pairwise likelihood inference for general state space models.
Econometric Reviews 28 (1-3), 170–185.
Varin C. (2008). On composite marginal likelihoods. Advances in Statistical Analysis 92 (1), 1–28.
Hjort N.L. and Varin C. (2008). ML, PL and QL in Markov chain models. Scandinavian Journal
of Statistics 35 (1), 64–82.
Varin C. and Vidoni P. (2006). Pairwise likelihood inference for ordinal categorical time series.
Computational Statistics and Data Analysis 51 (4), 2365–2373.
Varin C. and Vidoni P. (2005). A note on composite likelihood inference and model selection.
Biometrika 92 (3), 519–528.
Bellio R. and Varin C. (2005). A pairwise likelihood approach to generalized linear models with
crossed random effects. Statistical Modelling 5 (3), 217–227.
Varin C., Høst G., and Skare Ø. (2005). Pairwise likelihood inference in spatial generalized linear
mixed models. Computational Statistics and Data Analysis 49 (4), 1173–1191.
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Cristiano Varin
Book Chapters
Cattelan M. and Varin C. (2013). A model for correlated paired comparison data. In Advances
in Theoretical and Applied Statistics, N. Torelli, F. Pesarin and A. Bar-Hen (Eds.), Springer,
167–176.
Bhat C., Varin C., and Ferdous N. (2010). A comparison of the maximum simulated likelihood and
composite marginal likelihood estimation approaches in the context of the multivariate ordered
response model. In Advances in Econometrics Volume 26: Maximum Simulated Likelihood
Methods and Applications. C. Hill and W. Greene Eds., 65–106.
Peer-reviewed Proceedings
Cattelan M. and Varin C. (2013). Marginal modeling of dependent paired comparison data. Proceedings of the 28th International Workshop on Statistical Modelling, 529–532. Palermo,
July 8-12, 2013.
Cattelan M. and Varin C. (2013). Models for dependent paired comparison data. Proceedings of
the 18th European Young Statisticians Meeting. Osijek, August 26-30, 2013.
Varin C. and Guolo, A. (2012). Marginal beta regression for time series analysis. Proceedings of
the 27th International Workshop on Statistical Modelling, 357–362. Praha, July 16-20, 2012.
Cattelan M. and Varin C. (2011). A Thurstonian model for ranking scientific journals, Proceedings
S.Co. 2011: 7th Conference on Statistical Computation and Complex Systems. Padova,
September 19-21, 2011.
Cattelan M. and Varin C. (2011). Hybrid pairwise likelihood analysis of Thurstone-Mosteller
models. Proceedings CLADAG 2011: 8th Scientific Meeting of the Classification and Data
Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society. Pavia, September 7-9, 2011.
Cattelan M. and Varin C. (2010). A model for correlated paired comparison data. Proceedings of
the 45th Scientific Meeting of the Italian Statistical Society. Padova, June 16-18, 2010.
Varin C. and Czado C. (2007). Pairwise likelihood inference in dynamic models for longitudinal
ordinal outcomes. Proceedings of the 22nd International Workshop on Statistical Modelling.
Barcelona, July 2-6, 2007.
Varin C. and Czado C. (2006). On the statistical analysis of ordinal categorical time series with
application to migraine severity. Proceedings of the Conference Statistical Latent Variables
Models in the Health Sciences. Perugia, September 6-8, 2006.
Bellio R. and Varin C. (2004). Pairwise likelihood for generalized linear models with crossed random
effects. Proceedings of the 19th International Workshop on Statistical Modelling. Firenze,
July 4-8, 2004.
Submitted Papers
Falchi A., Varin C., Toscano G., and Zendri E. (2014). Statistical analysis of the physical properties
and durability of water-repellent mortars made with limestone cement, natural hydraulic lime
and pozzolana-lime
Guolo A. and Varin C. (2014). Random-effects meta-analysis: The number of studies matters.
Valotto G. and Varin C. (2014). Statistical Characterization of Aircraft NOx Emissions: The Case
of the Venice International Airport.
Parolini B., Adelman R.A., Zofia M., Saad I., Ducournau D., Varin C., and Guolo A. (2014).
Factors affecting the Outcome of Macular Hole Surgery: The European VitreoRetinal Society
Macular Hole Study Report Number 1.
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Cristiano Varin
Published Software
Guolo A. and Varin C. (2011). metaLik: Likelihood inference in meta-analysis and meta-regression
models. R package published on CRAN at http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/
metaLik.
Masarotto G. and Varin C. (2011). gcmr: Gaussian copula marginal Regression. R package published on CRAN at http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/gcmr.
Talks
Invited Conference Talks
May 2013
The ranking lasso
i-like Workshop, University of Warwick
Sep 2012
Composite likelihoods: An overview with emphasis on biostatistics
GDR Statistique & Santé, ENSAI Rennes
Sep 2011
Hybrid pairwise likelihood analysis of Thurstone-Mosteller models
8th Scientific Meeting CLADAG, University of Pavia
Aug 2010
An overview of composite likelihood methods
73rd Annual Meeting IMS, University of Gothenburg
Sep 2010
An overview of composite likelihood methods
Royal Statistical Society Conference 2010, Brighton
Jul 2009
An overview of composite likelihood methods
Workshop on Spatial Extremes and Applications, EPFL Lausanne
Sep 2006
Gumbel Lecture 2006:
On composite marginal likelihood inference for hierarchical models
Annual Meeting of the German Statistical Society, Dresden
Invited Conference Discussions
Mar 2013
Comparing and selecting spatial predictors using local criteria
N.Cressie’s talk at the “Workshop on Recent Advances in Statistical Inference:
Theory and Case Studies”, University of Padova
Jul 2010
Regression models for longitudinal multivariate and discrete data
SIS 2010 Conference, University of Padova
Sep 2007
Likelihood-based inference for complex statistical models
S.Co. 2007 Conference, Ca’ Foscari University
Invited Research Seminars
May 2013
The ranking lasso
Vienna University Economics and Business
Oct 2012
Gaussian copula marginal regression
CenStat, Hasselt University
May 2011
Gaussian dependence models for marginal regression
Department of Statistics, University of Toronto
Jun 2011
An overview of composite likelihood methods
Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Copenhagen
Nov 2010
Gaussian dependence models for non-Gaussian regression
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Cristiano Varin
Department of Economics and Business, University Pompeu Fabra
Apr 2009
Composite likelihood methods
Department of Mathematics, University of Oslo
Mar 2009
Marginal regression models with stationary time series errors
Department of Statistics, University of Warwick
Jul 2008
Gaussian autoregressive moving average copula models
MAP5, Paris Descartes University
Feb 2007
Composite likelihood methods in Markov chain models
MAP5, Paris Descartes University
Jun 2006
Composite likelihood methods in Markov chain models
Department of Statistics, Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich
May 2006
Composite likelihoods methods for temporal and spatial data
Dept. Economics and Finance, University Rome “Tor Vergata”
Jan 2006
Composite marginal likelihood inference
Institute of Mathematics, EPFL Lausanne
Jan 2006
Composite marginal likelihood inference
Department of Statistics, Ca’ Foscari University
Sep 2005
Composite marginal likelihood inference
Department of Statistics, University of Warwick
Dec 2004
Marginal composite likelihood inference in GLMMs
Dept. Economics, Finance, and Statistics, University of Perugia
Feb 2003
Pairwise likelihood inference in spatial GLMMs
Department of Statistics, University of Udine
Contributed Conference Talks
Jul 2012
Marginal beta regression for time series analysis
27th IWSM, Prague
Apr 2012
Overview of composite likelihood methods
2nd Workshop Composite Likelihood Methods, BIRS
Aug 2011
Gaussian copula regression using R
UseR! 2011 Conference, University of Warwick
May 2011
The ranking lasso
Workshop PRIN, University of Verona
Sep 2009
Hierarchical modelling of adult age-at-death in Paleodemography
RSS 2009 Conference, University of Edinburgh
Sep 2008
Composite likelihood analysis of mixed autoregressive probit models
Workshop Composite Likelihood Methods, University of Warwick
May 2009
Marginal regression models with correlated normal errors
Workshop PRIN, Cagliari
Jun 2008
Gaussian autoregressive moving average copula models
Workshop PRIN, Udine
Jul 2007
Pairwise likelihood inference for longitudinal ordinal outcomes
27th IWSM, Barcelona
May 2007
On composite marginal likelihoods
Workshop PRIN, Venezia
Mar 2007
Pairwise likelihood analysis of migraine severity diaries
Statistics under one Umbrella, Bielefeld University
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Cristiano Varin
Sep 2006
Statistical analysis of ordinal categorical time series
Statistical Latent Variables Models in Health Sciences, Perugia
Apr 2006
Pairwise likelihood inference for time series models
Italian Meeting on Time Series Analysis, Villa Mondragone
May 2006
Composite likelihood methods in Markov chain models
Workshop PRIN, Venezia
Oct 2005
Composite likelihood inference for ordinal categorical time series
World Conference CSDA, Amathus Hotel, Limassol
Sep 2005
Composite marginal likelihood inference
EMS summer school, University of Warwick
Jul 2005
Pairwise likelihood inference for state space models
European Meeting of Statisticians, University of Oslo
Sep 2004
Pairwise likelihood inference for non-linear state space models
Workshop on Time Series Analysis and Signal Extraction, Udine
Jul 2004
A pairwise likelihood approach to GLMMs
19th IWSM, Firenze
Feb 2004
Reconstruction of Marghera soil using compositional data
Workshop GRASPA, Bergamo
Nov 2003
Inference and model selection using composite likelihoods
Workshop PRIN, Padova
Jun 2003
Pairwise likelihood inference in spatial GLMMs
SPRUCE Conference, Lunds University
Jan 2003
Pairwise likelihood inference for spatial GLMMs
Workshop in memory of A.C. Capelo, Padova
Jun 2002
A pairwise framework for geostatistics
TIES Conference, Genova
Dec 2001
Generalized linear mixed models for remote sensing applications
Workshop GRASPA, Padova
Service to Profession
Editorial Activity
2014
2013 – 2016
Guest Associate Editor Statistica Sinica
Associate Editor Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C
Referee
Journals
Annals of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics; Annals of Applied Statistics;
Behavior Research Methods; Bernoulli; Biometrics; Biometrika; Biostatistics;
Canadian Journal of Statistics; Computational Statistics; Computational Statistics and Data Analysis; Communication in Statistics - Simulation and Computation; Environmentrics; Foundations and Trends in Econometrics; Journal of
Computational and Graphical Statistics; Journal of Multivariate Analysis; Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference; Journal of the American Statistical
Association; Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A; Journal of the
Royal Statistical Society Series B; Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C; Journal of Statistical Software; Metron; Psycometrika; Soil Research;
Stat; Statistical Methods and Applications; Statistical Papers; Statistica Sinica;
Statistics and Computing; Statistics in Medicine; Transportmetrika
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Cristiano Varin
Books
Proceedings
Advances in Econometrics; Copulae in Mathematical and Quantitative Finance; Proceedings Conference of the Italian Statistical Society; Proceedings
S.Co. Conference
Research
Projects
Athens University of Economics and Business; Ministero dell’Università,
Istruzione e Ricerca; Norwegian Council of Research
Scientific Committees
Dec 2013
Member Assessment Committee PhD in Environmental Sciences, Ca’ Foscari
University
Sep 2013
Member Assessment Committee PhD in Statistics, Aarhus University
Apr 2013
Member Assessment Committee PhD in Statistics, University of Padova
Apr 2012
Member Scientific Committee Second Workshop on Composite Likelihood Methods, Banff International Research Center
Apr 2010
Member Assessment Committee PhD in Statistics, University of Padova
Apr 2008
Member Scientific Committee Workshop on Composite Likelihood Methods,
University of Warwick
Teaching
PhD level
Ca’ Foscari University, PhD in Management Sciences:
Preparatory Probability (2014-15)
Statistics for management studies (2014-15)
Ca’ Foscari University, PhD in Environmental Sciences:
Applied statistics and geostatistics for environmental sciences (2012-13)
Introduction to geostatistics (2011-12, joint with C. Gaetan)
Ca’ Foscari University, PhD in Economics:
Time series analysis (2009-10)
University Rome Sapienza, PhD in Statistics:
Likelihood: Estensions and modifications (short course 2013-14)
University Milan Bicocca, PhD in Statistics:
Likelihood: Estensions and modifications (short course 2012-13)
Undergraduate
Ca’ Foscari University, DAIS:
Applied Statistics (2014-15)
Ca’ Foscari University, Department of Management:
Data analysis for business decisions (2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15)
Statistics 1 (2010-11, 2011-12)
Ca’ Foscari University, Faculty of Economics:
Statistics 1 (2009-2011)
Statistical quality control (2008-09, 2009-10)
Statistical modelling 2 (2007-08)
Statistical laboratory with R (2006-07)
University of Udine, Interfaculty Course in Biotechnology:
Statistics 2 (2005-06, 2006-07)
University of Udine, Faculty of Veterinary:
Applied statistics for experimental and technological research (2003-04)
Exercise Lessons
Ca’ Foscari University, Department of Management:
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Cristiano Varin
Statistics 1 (2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14)
Statistics 2 (2010-11, 2013-14)
Methodological statistics (2011-12)
Ca’ Foscari University, Faculty of Economics:
Statistical modelling 1 (2008-09)
Statistical modelling 2 (2008-09)
Statistics 1 (2006-07)
Statistics 2 (2003-04, 2006-07)
Computational statistics (2006-07)
University of Padova, Faculty of Economis:
Financial time series – advanced course (2004-05, 2005-06)
University of Padova, Faculty of Statistics:
Basic statistics (2001-02, 2002-03)
Probability (1999-2000, 2000-01)
University of Udine, Faculty of Mathematical, Phisical and Natural Sciences:
Applied statistics (2003-04, 2004-05, 2005-06)
High School
Laboratories
Liceo G. Berto, Mogliano Veneto:
Influenza surveillance with Google (2013-14)
Liceo L. Da Vinci, Treviso:
Does your mp3 player really play songs at random? (2011-12)
Introduzione alla probabilità (2011-12)
Istituto G.A. Farina, Vicenza:
A brief introduction to statistical inference (2010-11)
University Administration
2013 –
Member Faculty Board PhD Science and Management of Climate Change, Ca’
Foscari University
2012 –
Dean Delegate for DAIS Communication, Ca’ Foscari University
2012 –
Member Teaching Committee Bachelor in Statistics, Ca’ Foscari University
2012 – 2014
Member DAIS Research Funds Committee, Ca’ Foscari University
2011 –
Member DAIS Research Committee, Ca’ Foscari University
2011
Member Research Funds Committee, Dept. of Statistics, Ca’ Foscari University