Event info

Date: 12:00~13:00, JST Wednesday, 17 June 2026

Zoom: Online via Zoom

Speaker: Florence FORBES (Inria and University of Grenoble Alpes, France)

Title: Flow Matching Calibration for Simulation-Based Inference under Model Misspecification

Abstract:
Simulation-based inference (SBI) is transforming experimental sciences by enabling parameter estimation in complex non-linear models from simulated data. A persistent challenge however is model misspecification. In a Bayesian setting targeting posterior distributions errors may arise from the simulator the noise or prior modelling. These model components are only approximations of reality and severe mismatches can yield biased or overconfident posteriors. We address this issue by introducing Flow Matching Corrected Posterior Estimation (FMCPE) a framework that leverages the flow matching paradigm to refine simulation-trained posterior estimators using a small set of calibration samples. Our approach proceeds in two stages: first a posterior approximator is trained on abundant simulated data second flow matching transports its predictions toward the true posterior supported by calibration observations. We rely on these calibration observations to guide the correction without requiring explicit knowledge of the form of misspecification or which model components are affected. This design enables FMCPE to combine the scalability of SBI with robustness to distributional shift. Across synthetic benchmarks and real-world datasets we show that our proposal consistently mitigates the effects of misspecification delivering improved inference accuracy and uncertainty quantification compared to standard SBI baselines while remaining computationally efficient.

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This seminar series is a valuable opportunity for graduate students to get acquainted with the work of more experienced researchers in various mathematical fields. Undergraduate students are also welcome to join, as the talks are intended for non-experts, too. Regardless of your area of research, you can attend the seminar to expand your knowledge and get in touch with the latest developments in mathematics for industry.
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