Research Interests

Functional data analysis, and applications to (neuro-)imaging, phonetics, biophysics, econometrics and genomics

Papers

Submitted

  1. Matteo B., Stoecker A. & Tavakoli S. (2026) Infinite-Dimensional Spherical Kernel ridge Regression.
    [arXiv]

  2. Kerioui M., Temko D., Tavakoli S. & Ruffieux H. (2026) Modeling Time-course Gene Expression Data through Bayesian Partition Functional Principal Component Analysis.

Published

  1. Tavakoli S., Matteo B., Pigoli D., Chodroff E., Coleman J., Gubian M., Renwick M. E. L. & Sonderegger M. (2025) Statistics in Phonetics. Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application, 12, 133–156
    [arXiv] [paper]

  2. Palma M., Tavakoli S., Brettschneider J., Staicu A.-M. & Nichols T. E. (2025) Normative brain mapping of 3-dimensional morphometry imaging data using skewed functional data analysis. Human Brain Mapping
    [arXiv] [paper]

  3. Conde S., Tavakoli S. & Ezer D. (2024) Functional regression clustering with multiple functional gene expressions. PLOS ONE, 19, 11, e0310991
    [arXiv] [paper]

  4. Hallin M., Nisol G. & Tavakoli S. (2023) Factor Models for High-dimensional Functional Time Series I: Representation Results. Journal of Time Series Analysis, 44
    [freeview] [paper] [arXiv]

  5. Tavakoli S., Nisol G. & Hallin M. (2023) Factor Models for High-dimensional Functional Time Series II: Estimation and Forecasting. Journal of Time Series Analysis, 44
    [freeview] [paper] [arXiv] [code and data]

  6. Koshy A. & Tavakoli S. (2022) Exploring British Accents: Modeling the Trap-Bath Split with Functional Data Analysis. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series C
    [arXiv] [paper]

  7. Palma M., Tavakoli S., Brettschneider J. & Nichols T. E. (2020) Quantifying uncertainty in brain-predicted age using scalar-on-image quantile regression. NeuroImage, 219, 116938
    [arXiv] [paper]

  8. Tavakoli S. (2020) Discussion (as Proposer) of ‘Functional models for time-varying random objects’. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B, 82, 2
    [PDF] [slides] [paper]
    [video of the presentation]

  9. Tavakoli S., Pigoli D., Aston J. A. D. & Coleman J. (2019) A Spatial Modeling Approach for Linguistic Object Data: Analysing dialect sound variations across Great Britain. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 114, 527
    [arXiv] [paper] [rejoinder]

  10. Tavakoli S. (2018) Discussion of ‘The statistical analysis of acoustic phonetic data: exploring differences between spoken Romance languages’. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series C, 67, 5
    [PDF] [paper]

  11. Aston J. A. D., Pigoli D. & Tavakoli S. (2017) Tests for separability in nonparametric covariance operators of random surfaces. Annals of Statistics, 45, 4
    [arXiv] [paper]

  12. Tirlea M. A., Tavakoli S., Pigoli D. & Aston J. A. D. (2017) A Ticklish Problem: Studying Accent Variation from Speech Recordings. Significance, 14, 2
    [PDF] [paper]

  13. Tavakoli S. & Panaretos V. M. (2016) Detecting and Localizing Differences in Functional Time Series Dynamics: A Case Study in Molecular Biophysics. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 111, 515
    [paper]

  14. Panaretos V. M. & Tavakoli S. (2013) Cramér–Karhunen–Loève Representation and Harmonic Principal Component Analysis of Functional Time Series. Stochastic Processes and their Applications, 123, 7, 2779–2807
    [paper]

  15. Panaretos V. M. & Tavakoli S. (2013) Fourier Analysis of Stationary Time Series in Function Space. Annals of Statistics, 41, 2
    [arXiv] [paper]

PhD Thesis

  1. Tavakoli S. (2014) Fourier Analysis of Functional Time Series with Applications to DNA Dynamics. EPFL PhD Thesis [PDF]

MSc Thesis

  1. Tavakoli S. (2010) Elements of Statistics for Inference in Hilbert Spaces. EPFL MSc Dissertation [PDF]