#59 Bayesian Modeling in Civil Engineering, with Michael Faber

Learning Bayesian Statistics

In large-scale one-off civil infrastructure, decision-making under uncertainty is part of the job, that’s just how it is. But, civil engineers don't get the luxury of building 10^6 versions of the bridge, offshore wind turbine or aeronautical structure to consider a relative frequency interpretation!

And as you’ll hear, challenges don’t stop there: you also have to consider natural hazards such as earthquakes, rockfall and typhoons — in case you were wondering, civil engineering is not among the boring jobs!

To talk about these original topics, I had the pleasure to host Michael Faber. Michael is a Professor at the Department of Built Environment at Aalborg University, Denmark, the President of the Joint Committee on Structural Safety and is a tremendously deep thinker on the Bayesian interpretation of probability as it pertains to the risk-informed management of big infrastructure.

His research interests are directed on governance and management of risks, resilience and sustainability in the built environment — doing all that with Bayesian probabilistic modeling and applied Bayesian decision analysis, as you’ll hear.

Our theme music is « Good Bayesian », by Baba Brinkman (feat MC Lars and Mega Ran). Check out his awesome work at https://bababrinkman.com/ !

Thank you to my Patrons for making this episode possible!

Yusuke Saito, Avi Bryant, Ero Carrera, Giuliano Cruz, Tim Gasser, James Wade, Tradd Salvo, Adam Bartonicek, William Benton, Alan O'Donnell, Mark Ormsby, James Ahloy, Robin Taylor, Thomas Wiecki, Chad Scherrer, Nathaniel Neitzke, Zwelithini Tunyiswa, Elea McDonnell Feit, Bertrand Wilden, James Thompson, Stephen Oates, Gian Luca Di Tanna, Jack Wells, Matthew Maldonado, Ian Costley, Ally Salim, Larry Gill, Joshua Duncan, Ian Moran, Paul Oreto, Colin Caprani, George Ho, Colin Carroll, Nathaniel Burbank, Michael Osthege, Rémi Louf, Clive Edelsten, Henri Wallen, Hugo Botha, Vinh Nguyen, Raul Maldonado, Marcin Elantkowski, Adam C. Smith, Will Kurt, Andrew Moskowitz, Hector Munoz, Marco Gorelli, Simon Kessell, Bradley Rode, Patrick Kelley, Rick Anderson, Casper de Bruin, Philippe Labonde, Matthew McAnear, Michael Hankin, Cameron Smith, Luis Iberico, Tomáš Frýda, Ryan Wesslen, Andreas Netti, Riley King, Aaron Jones, Yoshiyuki Hamajima, Sven De Maeyer, Michael DeCrescenzo, Fergal M, Mason Yahr, Naoya Kanai, Steven Rowland and Aubrey Clayton.

Visit https://www.patreon.com/learnbayesstats to unlock exclusive Bayesian swag ;)

Links from the show:

• Michael's profile on Aalborg University: https://vbn.aau.dk/en/persons/100493
• Michael's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-havbro-faber-22898414/
• Statistics and Probability Theory - In Pursuit of Engineering Decision Support: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-94-007-4056-3
• Bayes in Civil Engineering - an abridged personal account of research and applications: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bayes-civil-engineering-michael-havbro-faber
• Website of the Joint Committee on Structural Safety (JCSS): https://www.jcss-lc.org/