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MRC Biostatistics Unit

Short Courses

In October, we welcomed a brilliant new cohort of PhD students. They are; Connor Fitchett, Boris Vasilev, Joshua Park, Letao Yuan, Shawn Han, Fuming Yang, Nasir Bashir and Simone Baskir. Here some of them introduce themselves.


Letao Yuan

"I have recently joined as a PhD student in the Efficient Study Design theme, supervised by Dominique-Laurent Couturier and Sofia Villar.

Before starting my PhD, I earned a Bachelor of Medicine and an MPhil in Population Health Sciences. With a dual background in medicine and biostatistics, I am passionate about advancing clinical trial design by refining treatment effect estimation, improving efficiency, and ensuring trial results are meaningful and relevant to patients.

My master’s dissertation focused on improving the modelling of complex patient-centred outcomes for clinical trials. I am now looking forward to further exploring these outcomes, and developing adaptive methods for trials involving them, with a particular focus on the use of Days Alive at Home (DAH) in surgical trials."


Connor Fitchett

"I've just started my PhD in the Efficient Study Design group at the BSU. I come from a maths and stats background, having graduated from Oxford with an integrated masters, and now I'm looking forward to working under my supervisors, David Robertson, Sofia Villar, and Ayon Mukherjee to delve deeper into the field of master protocols and adaptive designs. When I'm not working, you might find me programming and designing my own video game!"


Joshua Park

"I completed the integrated Master of Science in Engineering in Biomedical Engineering at JHU with a concentration in biomedical data science. After graduating, I worked as an associate computational biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in the Klarman Cell Observatory.

I am looking forward to the exciting research that I will be doing during my PhD at the BSU. I am co-advised by Sach Mukherjee and John Whittaker and in both the Biostatistical Machine Learning and the Causal Mechanisms themes. Causality has been my primary research interest for a long time and it's very exciting to finally get a chance to do research in this area and to be working with such a diverse and talented group of researchers."


Shawn Han

"I earned a BSc in Maths with Statistics from the University of Bristol and an MSc in Health Data Science from UCL, followed by a year as a research assistant at UCL. My PhD supervisors are Jessica Barrett and Eleanor Winpenny, and I am working on the Precision Medicine theme. I am looking forward to utilizing statistical methods to enhance our understanding and prediction of treatments and healthcare decisions, applying this knowledge practically to impact patient care positively."


Simone Baskir

"I’ve started working on my PhD in Biostatistics with supervisors Daniela De Angelis and Paul Birrell in the Population Health theme. My fascination with statistics is motivated by applying it to the world around me. I’m really excited to use and develop models which can effectively create and simulate a virtual world – an area which offers limitless intellectual stimulation, space for new ideas, and opportunities to apply this to benefit public health.

I recently graduated from Oxford with an MSc in Statistical Science and previously graduated from UCL with a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics and Statistical Science."


Fuming Yang

"I completed my undergraduate studies in Mathematics at Imperial College London and a Master's in Statistics at Oxford University. Now, under the supervision of Anne Presanis, I’m pursuing a PhD in the Population Health theme, focusing on developing Bayesian models to estimate the burden of infectious diseases. Outside of work, I enjoy gardening."