Johan PensarView profile
Associate Professor
Johan Pensar is an Associate Professor of Statistics and Data Science at the University of Oslo's Department of Mathematics. He holds a PhD from Åbo Akademi University (2016) and was a postdoc at the University of Helsinki (2016–2020). His research focuses on statistical machine learning, probabilistic graphical models, causal inference, and applications in genomics. He has supervised multiple PhD students and co-supervised others in interdisciplinary projects, including causal modeling in healthcare and machine learning for microbiology. Education: PhD in Statistics, Åbo Akademi University, 2016 Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki, 2016–2020 Research Interests: Pensar's work integrates statistical theory with practical applications. Key areas include developing methods for causal discovery, probabilistic graphical models (e.g., Bayesian networks), and their use in genomics and healthcare. He emphasizes interpretable machine learning and robust statistical frameworks for complex data. Publications: Recent work spans causal inference, microbial genome analysis, and housing market prediction. His methods address challenges like confounding bias, generalization in ML, and uncertainty quantification in valuation models. Awards: Finnish Statistical Society Doctoral Thesis Award (2013–2016) Teaching & Advising: Pensar teaches advanced courses in statistical learning and probabilistic graphical models. He advises PhD students on causal modeling, ML in healthcare, and data science applications. He collaborates with industry partners like Integreat and Eiendomsverdi AS. Lab/Teams: He is affiliated with the Norwegian Centre for Knowledge-driven Machine Learning (Integreat) and leads research on Bayesian methods in ML.
