Submitted by A.S. Quenault on Wed, 21/05/2025 - 14:52
Congratulations to Programme Leader (MRC Investigator), Sofía Villar, on being the 2025 Frank Hansford-Miller Fellowship holder.
The Frank Hansford-Miller Fellowship helps to bring a UK statistician to Australia biennially usually for a period of 2 weeks during which they give a talk and deliver a workshop. The talk this year will be given at the Australian Statistics Conference 2025 to be held in Perth between the 1st and 5th December 2025 and Sofía will be the 7th recipient of the Fellowship. Her conference talk will focus focus on the question of whether we have truly 'arrived' with Response-Adaptive Designs, examining recent advances in their design, analysis, and implementation. The workshop will provide a technical deep dive into the latest advancements in Response-Adaptive Designs methodology for clinical trials, moving beyond foundational concepts to explore the practical challenges and solutions in their implementation, focusing on recent developments in design, analysis, and Type I error control.
Sofía was nominated by Michael Dymock, from the University of Western Australia (UWA). Her visit will enable her to develop ties with the biostatistical community within Western Australia. In particular, exploring collaborations with statisticians based at The Kids Research Institute Australia who share an interest in innovative clinical trial designs. Sofía will also visit departments at the local universities, including the School of Population and Global Health at UWA.
Frank Hansford-Miller was an applied statistician and it is very fitting that a researcher of Sofía's expertise in clinical trial design be awarded the fellowship and deliver the seminar. As part of the Fellowship, Sofía's accommodation and flights to Perth will be paid for.
Sofía said:
"I am absolutely delighted and deeply grateful to be named the Frank Hansford-Miller Fellow. This is a fantastic opportunity to strengthen UK-Australia statistical connections, and I eagerly anticipate contributing to ASC2025 and exploring new collaborations with a vibrant Australian statistical community."