Statistics Colloquium: Qingyuan Zhao
11:30 am–12:30 pm Jones 303
Qingyuan Zhao, Statistical Laboratory and Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics, University of Cambridge
Title: The symbiosis of statistical genetics and causal inference
Abstract: Statistical genetics and causal inference share an intertwined beginning in the first half of the 20th century. Many fundamental concepts in causal inference, such as Fisher’s randomization principle for experimental design and Wright’s path analysis, originated from genetic problems, but the two fields grew apart later. In this talk, I will argue that the two fields can (and perhaps should) still learn from each other by highlighting two examples from my own research. The first example concerns Mendelian randomization, a popular method in genetic epidemiology to estimate the causal effect of a heritable risk factor. I will use the modern theory of causal graphical model and randomization inference to give a precise understanding of the assumptions and sources of bias in Mendelian randomization. My second example concerns heritability, an important concept in the broad “nature versus nurture” debate. I will review some existing notions of heritability and propose a counterfactual definition that does not rely on any parametric model for the phenotypic trait. A key feature of counterfactual heritability is that it is generally not exactly identified but can be bounded from above and below using empirical data, reflecting our intrinsic uncertainty about the level of interaction between gene and (unmeasured) environment. I will also discuss how this motivates a measure of counterfactual explainability for black-box models and how this connects to the functional analysis of variance.
Statistics Colloquium: David Dunson
11:30 am–12:30 pm Jones 303
David Dunson, Statistical Science and Department of Mathematics, Duke University
“TBA”
Student Seminar: Omar Al-Ghattas
9:00–11:00 am Jones 304
Thursday, April 10, 2025, at 9:00 AM, in Jones 304, 5747 S. Ellis Avenue
PhD Dissertation Defense Presentation
Omar Al-Ghattas, Department of Statistics, The University of Chicago
“TBA”
Statistics Colloquium: Ashwin Pananjady
11:30 am–12:30 pm Jones 303
Ashwin Pananjady, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering/The School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
“TBA”
Statistics Colloquium: Jiaying Gu
11:30 am–12:30 pm Jones 303
Jiaying Gu, Department of Economics, University of Toronto
“TBA”
Statistics Colloquium: Anne van Delft
11:30 am–12:30 pm Jones 303
Anne van Delft, Department of Statistics, Columbia University
“TBA”
Statistics Colloquium: Michael Hudgens
11:30 am–12:30 pm Jones 303
Michael Hudgens, Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“Causal Inference in Infectious Disease Prevention Studies”
