Biostatistics grad earns top honor in American Statistical Association Student Paper Competition

Sean Tomlin ’25 PhD has been selected as a winner of the American Statistical Association’s 2026 GSS/SSS/SRMS Student Paper Competition, sponsored jointly by the government statistics section, social statistics section and survey research methods section. He was recognized for his paper “Characterizing Retrospective Constraints of Survey Designs for Estimating Population-level Causal Effects," which is connected to his dissertation research.

His study helps formalize key limitations in using complex survey data to draw reliable causal inferences, an issue with wide-reaching implications for public health research.

He will receive a stipend and present his research at the Joint Statistical Meetings in Boston this August.