In July 2026, STOR-i PhD student Jasmine Burgess attended the International Meeting of the Psychometric Society in Seoul, South Korea. The conference brings together over 700 researchers specialising in statistics, psychometrics and quantitative methods for the social and behavioural sciences, and Jasmine was one of only eight recipients to receive a competitive travel award from the Society in order to attend. Jasmine presented her PhD research, undertaken in collaboration with the British Red Cross, providing her with an opportunity to share her research with an international audience, receive feedback from leading scholars in her field, and build connections with researchers from around the world.

The following week, Jasmine also presented her research at the workshop ‘Next-generation Factor Models for Social Data Science’, held at the Institute of Mathematics for Industry at Kyushu University in Japan. Organised by STOR-i’s Gabriel Wallin, the workshop brought together researchers from Japan and the UK to share and discuss recent developments in factor models and their applications to social data science. It also provided an opportunity to exchange ideas for future collaboration.

Commenting on the experience, Jasmine said: “I was honoured to win the Pyschometric Society Travel Award. I had the opportunity to present my work titled ‘Mixed-Resolution Spatial Latent Variable Models for Mapping Social Unrest and Deprivation’ at the International Meeting of the Pyschometrics conference and a workshop held at Kyushu University. It was exciting to present in front of an international audience, and getting feedback from mathematicians and social scientists studying similar methods has given me new ideas to explore. I was inspired by hearing about their work and learning more about the wider field of Psychometrics. It was also an incredible experience to visit Seoul and Fukuoka, and I enjoyed trying Korean barbeque, visiting shrines and the wonderful conference banquet with traditional Korean dancing.”

Congratulations to Jasmine on these achievements and for representing STOR-i on the international stage!