An important part of provisional year of PhD candidacy is to refine one’s research question.

While I wrote an evolutionary algorithm code as an optimization method to search the high dimensional parameter space of the microlensing modelling problem, I have been faced with the tough decision to place it on the sideburner while diving into a new area of investigation for the purpose of refining the research question further.

This was due to the literature findings that suggest that microlensing model comparison techniques are in need of development, beyond the comparison of chi-square values alone!

This new direction of investigation involves Nested-sampling based algorithms for simultaneous parameter estimation and model comparison, based on the Bayesian approach.