Post-doctoral Reseacher, Population Biology Unit — Swiss Ornithological Institute (Vogelwarte)

Mario Figueira

I build reproducible Bayesian models for spatial and spatio-temporal processes using INLA, inlabru, and MCMC to turn scattered observations into insights on how phenomena vary across space and time. For highly specialized and complex models, I custom-code Bayesian solvers using deterministic, stochastic, or hybrid approaches to explore posterior distributions.

Research

My work focuses on computational statistics and Bayesian inference. These two pillars have allowed me to develop novel space-time models, focusing both on the classical analysis of species distribution models and on the spatio-temporal analysis of compositional data—particularly through my collaboration on the European project LAMASUS (Land Use and Management) for land-use analysis.

INLA & inlabru

Fast, approximate Bayesian inference for latent Gaussian models.

MCMC

Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods, diagnostics, and convergence checks.

Spatial & spatio-temporal models

SPDE-FEM approaches for building geostatistical, discrete graphical and point process models.

Hierarchical modeling

Hierarchical structures for irregular and complex real-world data.

Publications

Selected

Published

Preprints

Software & tutorials

Guides paired with working code and data, built so the material is directly reusable rather than purely descriptive.

Full documentation, organized as a browsable reference. Open the docs

Career

16/02/2026 — 15/02/2028
Post-doctoral Researcher, Population Biology Unit.
Swiss Ornithological Institute (Vogelwarte), Switzerland.
28/10/2023 — 21/01/2026
PhD Candidate, Statistics and Optimization.
University of Valencia, Spain.
2021 — 2023
Master in Biostatistics.
University of Valencia, Spain.
2015 — 2019
Bacherlor in Physics.
University of Santiogo of Compostela, Spain.

CV

Full education, research, and technical background.

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