Myrto Lefkopoulou Distinguished Lectureship

We are extremely pleased to announce that Dr. José Zubizarreta, Daniel C. Tosteson Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, will be the recipient of the 2026 Myrto Lefkopoulou Distinguished Lectureship!

Dr. José Zubizarreta is scheduled to give an in-person lecture at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health on Thursday, September 24th. More details to follow.

2026 Recipient Biography

   The Experiment Inside the Model: Exact Weighting Representations for Spatial, Panel, and Meta-Analytic Studies

Statistical adjustments in observational studies are usually described by the model that produces them. A spatial regression with a Gaussian process error, a two-way fixed effects model on a staggered policy rollout, and a mixed effects meta-analysis of trials all report a single effect coefficient. In each case it takes work to say how the causal contrast behind that coefficient was built, which observations went into it and how much each one counts, and what features of a randomized experiment, if any, it approximates.

   In this lecture we give equivalent closed-form weighting representations of these estimators, where the weights solve a common mathematical program that minimizes their dispersion subject to balance requirements. In finite samples, this program reveals the experiment each model implies, and in turn how the model might be specified differently. 

(i) For spatial data, we show that specifying the error structure of a linear model is equivalent to including a set of hidden covariates in the regression under a particular form of regularization. 

(ii) For panel data, we clarify how two-way fixed effects and related estimators borrow information across units and time periods, and which assumptions on the dynamics of the effects are needed to justify it. 

(iii) For meta-analytic data, we demonstrate that the weights themselves detect studies and observations whose covariate distributions deviate meaningfully from the target population, suggesting when it is prudent to exclude them. 

   These representations give rise to diagnostics that open the analysis to scrutiny, and they bring methods that appear unrelated onto common ground. We illustrate with studies of Superfund site remediation and birth outcomes, of Castle Doctrine laws and homicide rates, and of psychotherapy trials for depression, and close with directions for future work.

About the Award

Established in memory of Myrto Lefkopoulou, this lectureship is awarded to a promising statistical who has made contributions to either collaborative or methodological research in the applications of statistical methods to biology or medicine, or who has shown excellence in the teaching of Biostatistics.

Ordinarily, the lectureship is given to a statistician who has earned a doctorate in the last fifteen years. The lecture is presented to a general scientific audience as the first Department colloquium of each academic year. The lectureship includes travel to Boston, a reception following the lecture, and an honorarium of $1000.

Nominations

Please include the candidate’s CV and a letter of nomination describing the contributions of the candidate, specifically highlighting the criteria for the award. Additional letters of support would be extremely helpful as well.

Nominations are due July 16th, 2027

Please send nominations to: kpietrini@hsph.harvard.edu.

Recent Awardees

Past Recipients included:

• 2025 Marco Carone
• 2024 Alisa Stephens-Shields
• 2023 Stephanie Hicks
• 2022 Jeffery T. Leek
• 2021  Antonio Gasparrini
• 2020  Eric Tchetgen Tchetgen
• 2019  Veera Baladandayuthapani
• 2018  Elizabeth Stuart
• 2017  Ciprian Crainiceanu
• 2016  Mahlet Tadesse
• 2015  Debashis Ghosh
• 2014  Tianxi Cai
• 2013  Nilanjan Chatterjee
• 2012  Rafael Irizarry
• 2011  Jeffrey Morris
• 2010  David Dunson
• 2009  Xihong Lin
• 2008  Heping Zhang
• 2007  Francesca Dominici
• 2006  Jianqing Fan
• 2005  Mark van der Laan
• 2004  Geert Molenberghs
• 2003  Marie Davidian
• 2002  Danyu Lin
• 2001  Bradley P. Carlin
• 2000  Steven N. Goodman
• 1999  Giovanni Parmigianni
• 1998  Kathryn Roeder
• 1997  Ronald S. Brookmeyer
• 1996  Trevor J. Hastie
• 1995  Hans-George Mueller
• 1994  Michael L. Boehnke
• 1993  Louise Ryan