Afshin Ashofteh

Afshin Ashofteh is an invited Professor Auxiliar at the NOVA Information Management School (Nova University of Lisbon), a research fellow of the department of Methodology and Information Systems at the Statistics Portugal (INE), an integrated researcher of the Information Management Research and Development Center (MagIC), and a member of two Technical Advisory Groups (TAG) in the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).

He holds a Ph.D. in Information Management specializing in Statistics and Econometrics, an MBA in Finance, a Post-graduate degree in Statistical Systems specializing in Central Banks, and a Master`s and a BSc degree in Mathematical Statistics. He is certified by TÜV NORD for Risk Management and Internal Audit of Information Security Management System (ISMS). His professional path includes the experience of teaching and applying Data Science, Econometrics, and Statistics to problems in financial risks, actuaries, and official statistics. His scientific interests have focused on Data Science, Big Data, and predictive models. His recent work about a new machine learning approach for credit scoring with Big Data and its PySpark code was the winner of the first prize of the International Conference of Risk Analysis in Austria and was published in Expert Systems with Application journal (a top 5% journal in Artificial Intelligence).

 - International Projects:

Strategic Planning: One of the eight members of the strategic planning group of the International Data & Statistical Literacy Project. This project was initiated by the education section of the International Statistical Institute (ISI). The goal of this project was to present a strategic plan for promoting data and statistical literacy across the world and in all walks of life. This project was directed by Professor Dr. Jim Ridgway, University of Durham, and Professor Dr. Milo Schield, Augsburg University, Minneapolis. (Referenced by his permission: schield@augsburg.edu).

Jury Member of an International Competition: Honored to be joined by Ana Serradó Bayés, Delia North, James R. Nicholson, Anushka Karkelanova, and Matt Parry as the judging panel for the International Statistical Literacy Poster Competition of 2020-2021. This international competition was organized by the education section of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) in ISLP. The winners received their prizes at the 63rd World Statistics Congress of the ISI in the Netherlands.

Member of Two Technical Advisory Groups: Member of two Technical Advisory Groups in the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).

- Invited Speaker

2022 - Portugal - Data Collection Methods and Computer-Assisted Interviews. Invited to talk for master students of Faculdade de Economia, Universidade de Porto.

2019 - Portugal - Data Science and Open Banking. Invited to talk for new master's students of Nova IMS.

2018 - Spain - Mining Big Data for Statistical Systems of Monetary and Financial Institutions. Invited to talk at CARMA2018.

2018 - Portugal - New Technologies and Information Management for Central Banking. Invited to talk at Nova School of Business and Economics.

2017 - Morocco - The Challenges of Improving Financial Data and Statistical Literacy. Invited to talk at ISI World Statistics Congress.

2016 - Switzerland - Financial Stability and Statistical Systems in Banking. Invited by UNCTAD & WTO.