Christopher Foley

I recently joined the MRC Biostatistics Unit as a Research Associate working under the supervision of Dr Stephen Burgess.  My main research interests are in the area of causal inference, with a particular focus on Mendelian Randomization which proposes single nucleotide variants as instrumental variables in statistical analyses. Our aim is to build statistical models that can: (i) perform reliable inference on a putative causal relationship between a risk-factor and disease outcome and (ii) identify and explain causal effect heterogeneity when collections of genetic instruments recover conflicting `versions' of causality.  Prior to joining the BSU I completed a PhD in mathematics at the University of Edinburgh and held a two year NIHR research methods fellowship in biostatistics at the University of Manchester.