Course schedule – 8:00 am -5:00 pm

This two-day workshop will cover introductory and intermediate topics in applied Bayesian inference and is intended for fisheries biologists and scientists seeking to broaden their analytical knowledge. Instruction will include a mixture of lecture and guided coding tutorials using programs R and JAGS to introduce participants to Bayesian inference and its computational implementation. Lecture topics covered include fundamentals of Bayesian inference, distinctions between Bayesian and classical inference, prior and posterior distributions, basics of Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods, convergence diagnostics, reporting methods, and posterior predictive checking of assumptions. These topics will be explored using example data analyses that range in complexity from basic means comparisons to general(ized) linear (mixed) models, concluding with state-space expressions of Cormack-Jolly-Seber models. A refresher/overview of each model will be provided to ensure participants understand the model prior to seeing its representation in JAGS code. Participants will need a laptop with the correct software installed.

Instructors:

• Henry Hershey, US Army Corps of Engineers
• Benjamin Staton, Columbia Inter-Tribal Fish Commission