Synopsis:

For more than 20 years, the RCH campus has boasted one of the pre-eminent biostatistics groups in Australia, as reflected in a recent international conference that was brought to Melbourne (and the southern/eastern hemisphere!) for the first time in its 39 years by an organising committee led by CEBU biostatisticians. But what does a biostatistics group really do, and why does this matter? The CEBU team will reveal all in a wide-ranging presentation that will emphasise both the importance of statistics in so many areas of clinical and public health research and the importance of dedicated expertise backed up by research and development in statistical methods. We will give examples of our contributions to research on campus and more broadly, and describe how we work, from small-scale consultations (“just a quick question”) through to large-scale collaborations and internationally significant methods development.

Speakers:

John Carlin, Professor and Head of CEBU since 2001, who has contributed to methods for longitudinal analysis and handling of missing data while being involved in numerous large-scale cohort studies and clinical trials across many areas of child and adolescent health.

Susan Donath, Associate Professor and lead statistical consultant.

Katherine Lee, Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Melbourne Children’s Trials Centre.

Margarita Moreno-Betancur, Senior Research Fellow, researcher in mediation analysis, missing data and survival methods.

Francesca Orsini, Research Officer specialising in clinical trials.

Luke Stevens, Data Management Coordinator and administrator of major MCRI systems such as REDCap and figshare.

Monsurul Hoq, (PhD student in biostatistics).