Anna is a Scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Toronto, an Assistant Professor at University of Toronto and Honorary Research Fellow at University College London, UK. She is the Canada Research Chair in Statistical Trial Design. She holds a degree in Mathematics with French language from the University of Sheffield, UK and a PhD in Statistical Science from University College London. She moved to Toronto in 2018 to lead the development of innovative statistical methodology for four clinical trials for novel treatments in the paediatric emergency department. In 2020, she started as a Scientist at SickKids and founded the IMPaCT lab. Her research now focuses on developing novel statistical methodology, software, expertise and guidance to improve the efficiency and design of clinical trials, particularly in paediatrics. This research combines many areas including biostatistics, evidence synthesis, meta-analysis, Bayesian methods, decision theory, health economic modelling and simulation based methods. Outside of work, she is a very keen ballroom dancer, a musician and a cricket-lover.

Yongdong (Derek) joined the IMPaCT lab as a Biostatistician in Oct 2023. He holds a Ph.D. in Biostatistics and Epidemiology from the School of Population and Public Health, at the University of British Columbia. Before joining SickKids, he was a CIHR Health System Impact Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. Yongdong’s research focuses on the design and analysis of clinical trials, with a particular emphasis on novel cluster randomized trials and Bayesian adaptive design. His research also covers Quasi-experimental design, causal inference, and longitudinal data analysis. As a recently graduated biostatistician, he also actively collaborates with clinicians and researchers from various backgrounds and provides statistical consultations in study design, grant proposals, and data analysis.

Yi-Shu is a postdoctoral research fellow at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). She earned her PhD at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, where her research focused on improving the methodology for analysing the cost-effectiveness of cancer screening strategies. Her academic background includes an MSc in Health Economics and Decision Modelling from the University of Sheffield, as well as an MBA in Health Care Administration from Taipei Medical University. Currently, she is a member of the IMPaCT LAB, where she contributes to a project aimed at expediting the new drug approval process in Canada. Her areas of expertise and research interests lie in economic evaluation methods, health economic modelling, and simulation techniques, with a particular focus on developing open-source R models.

Wen is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Heath lab working on the design and analysis of clinical trials using Bayesian approach. He is also interested in the methodological development of Bayesian statistics. Prior to joining the lab, he studied statistics (specialized in survival analysis) in Queen’s University.

Linke is a PhD student in Biostatistics at the University of Toronto. He completed a bachelor of computing degree and master of science degree in statistics at Queen’s University. He joined the lab in 2020 and is currently working on developing methods for adaptive trial design. Outside of research, he is a big fan of anime and detective novels.

Abigail is currently a Master’s student in Biostatistics at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. She joined the lab to complete her thesis which focuses on Bayesian methods applied to adaptive clinical trials. Abigail received her Bachelor’s degree in Actuarial Science from Western University. In her spare time she enjoys running, reading, and travelling.

Yanara holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Ottawa, and a graduate certificate in Project Management. She spent over 2 years working in South-East Africa, supporting local research and advocacy initiatives focused on women’s sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) in the HIV and AIDS sector, as well as planning and coordinating a large-scale volunteer program in Malawi. She started working at SickKids in 2019 and joined the IMPaCT Lab as a Research Coordinator in January 2023. Her passions outside of work include running after her young daughter, trying out new cuisines, and traveling as much as possible.

I am Chengyang Gao, originally from China. I obtained a BSc in Statistics, Economics and Finance at UCL and a Master’s degree in Health economics from the department of health policy at the LSE. I am currently back at UCL completing a doctoral degree in Statistical Science. My current research interest focuses on applying Bayesian and survey inference methods to study the generalisability of cost-effectiveness analysis. Outside of research, I enjoy long walk in the city.

Dr Cal Robinson is currently a pediatric nephrology fellow at SickKids in Toronto and an MSc student in the University of Toronto Clinical Epidemiology program. He did his medical training in the UK at St Andrews and Manchester before returning to McMaster for pediatric residency. At McMaster he developed a passion for research with ICES healthcare administrative data. He is currently pursuing an MSc (with a planned PhD transfer) focused on adaptive clinical trials and novel statistical methods, including Bayesian statistics and target trial emulation.

Arlene is joining the lab through the Canadian Network for Statistical Training in Trials (CANSTAT) Fellowship. She completed her MSc in Biostatistics at Queen’s University and her BSc in Neuroscience and Computer Science at Dalhousie University. Her research has focused on neural data analysis for neonatal pain management and statistical bias in oncology trials. In her spare time, she enjoys dancing, running, and yoga.

Rachel Giblon is currently a PhD student in Biostatistics at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. She holds a BSc in Biophysics from York University, as well as an MSc in Epidemiology & Biostatistics from the University of Western Ontario. Prior to her doctoral studies, Rachel worked for five years as a biostatistician at the Mayo Clinic. Her primary research interests are in adaptive and pragmatic Bayesian designs for clinical trials. Outside of research, Rachel loves running, cooking, yoga, and spending time with family.

I am currently a PhD student in Statistics and Computer Science at Bocconi University in Milan. I obtained a BSc in mathematics at the University of Milan and a Master’s degree in Stochastics and Data Science at the University of Turin. My research interests include Bayesian methods in health economics, VoI in the face of administrative data and missing data problems. Outside of research, I love politics and enjoy football despite not being good at playing it.

George is pursuing a PhD in biostatistics at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and joined the IMPaCT lab in November 2022 as a practicum student exploring risk prediction models for cardiovascular disease. His doctoral research involves developing methodology for the analysis of irregularly observed longitudinal data. Prior to studying at the University of Toronto, he completed a master’s degree in statistics at the University of Guelph and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at McGill University. In his spare time, George enjoys biking and going on walks through the city.

Yuning is currently a PhD student in Biostatistics at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. She completed her MSc in Biostatistics at Columbia University and her BSc in Marine Science at Zhejiang University. Her current research interests include decision models in VoI and hierarchical Bayesian models. Outside of research, she enjoys reading, travelling, and cooking.

Phebe joined IMPaCT Lab at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) as a clinical research project assistant in 2020. Her work is mainly focusing on applying elicitation methods, developing statistical analysis plans, and improving Bayesian statistical analysis in paediatric clinical trial design. She holds a Master of Science in Biostatistics from University of Toronto and an Honours Bachelor of Science in Statistics from Queen’s University. During her graduate studies, she worked at Princess Margaret Cancer Research Centre, where she applied functional data analysis and performing predictive modelling using R. Her research interests include Bayesian analysis, survival analysis, and R programming.

Antonio joined the IMPaCT Lab at SickKids while conducting his doctoral degree in Statistical Science at University College London under the co-supervision of Professor Anna Heath. His PhD was primarily concerned with the development and application of statistical methods to compare treatments in the absence of head-to-head clinical trials. Antonio is now based in the UK and works as a statistician for Bayer Pharmaceuticals, specializing in health technology assessment, health economics and outcomes research, and observational studies. He is still conducting research on statistical methodology. Outside of statistics and research, Antonio is a musician and DJ.

Larry is a student pursuing a PhD in biostatistics at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada. Prior to coming to Toronto, he grew up in Montreal and studied at McGill University and at the University of Bordeaux. His research interests include Bayesian methods and causal inference, more specifically dynamic treatment regimes. During his free time, he enjoys playing basketball, skateboarding and doing dishes for his roommate who cooks very well.