Michael Schweinberger

Professor of Statistics
Michael Schweinberger

Biography

Michael Schweinberger (Ph.D., University of Groningen, NL) is a Professor of Statistics at The Pennsylvania State University. In the past, he served on the faculty of Rice University, held visiting positions at the University of Washington, Seattle and the University of Missouri, Columbia, and held postdoctoral positions at The Pennsylvania State University and the University of Washington, Seattle.


Research

Mathematical foundations of data science with applications to dependent data:

  • dependent network data
  • regression under network interference
  • causal inference under network interference
  • design of novel stochastic models that do justice to the interconnected and interdependent world of the twenty-first century.

Funding by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).


Selected Publications

Bhadra, S. and M. Schweinberger. Characterizing direct and indirect causal effects when outcomes are dependent due to treatment spillover and outcome spillover. arXiv:2504.06108

Fritz, C., Schweinberger, M., Bhadra, S., and D.R. Hunter. A regression framework for studying relationships among attributes under network interference. arXiv:2410.07555

Stewart, J.R. and M. Schweinberger (2025+). Pseudo-likelihood-based M-estimation of random graphs with dependent edges and parameter vectors of increasing dimension. The Annals of Statistics. Accepted and in press.

Eli, S. and Schweinberger, M. (2024). Non-asymptotic model selection for models of network data with parameter vectors of increasing dimension. Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, 233, 106173. 

Jeon, M. and M. Schweinberger (2024). A latent process model for monitoring progress towards hard-to-measure targets, with applications to mental health and online educational assessments. The Annals of Applied Statistics, 18, 2123-2146.

Schweinberger, M., Bomiriya, R.P., and S. Babkin (2022). A semiparametric Bayesian approach to epidemics, with application to the spread of the coronavirus MERS in South Korea in 2015. Journal of Nonparametric Statistics, 34, 628–662.

Schweinberger, M. and J.R. Stewart (2020). Concentration and consistency results for canonical and curved exponential-family models of random graphs. The Annals of Statistics, 48, 374–396.

Schweinberger, M. (2020). Consistent structure estimation of exponential-family random graph models with block structure. Bernoulli, 26, 1205–1233.

Schweinberger, M., Krivitsky, P.N., Butts, C.T., and J.R. Stewart (2020). Exponential-family models of random graphs: Inference in finite, super, and infinite population scenarios. Statistical Science, 35, 627–662.

Schweinberger, M., Babkin, S., and K.B. Ensor (2017). High-dimensional multivariate time series with additional structure. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 26, 610–622.

Schweinberger, M. and M.S. Handcock (2015). Local dependence in random graph models: Characterization, properties and statistical inference. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B, 77, 647–676.

Vu, D.Q., Hunter, D.R., and M. Schweinberger (2013). Model-based clustering of large networks. The Annals of Applied Statistics, 7, 1010–1039.

Schweinberger, M. (2011). Instability, sensitivity, and degeneracy of discrete exponential families. Journal of the American Statistical Association, Theory & Methods, 106, 1361–1370.

Snijders, T.A.B., Koskinen, J.H., and M. Schweinberger (2010). Maximum likelihood estimation for social network dynamics. The Annals of Applied Statistics, 4, 567–588.

Schweinberger, M. and T.A.B. Snijders (2007). Markov models for digraph panel data: Monte Carlo-based derivative estimation. Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, 51, 4465-4483.

Schweinberger, M. and T.A.B. Snijders (2003). Settings in social networks: A measurement model. Sociological Methodology, 33, 307–341.


Ph.D. Students and Postdoctoral Scholars

  • Subhankar Bhadra, Postdoctoral Scholar. Department of Statistics, Pennsylvania State University
  • Cornelius Fritz, Postdoctoral Scholar. First position: tenure-track Assistant Professor, School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin, Ireland
  • Served on 22 Ph.D. committees

Service

In addition to serving on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, the Journal of Statistical Software, Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Econometrics & Statistics, and Statistical Methods & Applications (Guest Editor), Schweinberger served as a panelist and reviewer for U.S. and European academic and governmental institutions, including the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the European Research Council (ERC), the German Research Foundation (DFG), and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).


Teaching

STAT 597 Statistical learning with networks

STAT 416 & MATH 416 Stochastic modeling

STAT 415 & MATH 415 Introduction to mathematical statistics

STAT 401 & MATH 401 Experimental methods

Other courses (Rice University): M.S. and Ph.D. courses on statistical inference (with and without measure theory)