James Robins
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James M. Robins is an
epidemiologist Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidenc ...
and biostatistician best known for advancing methods for drawing
causal Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the ca ...
inference Inferences are steps in reasoning, moving from premises to logical consequences; etymologically, the word '' infer'' means to "carry forward". Inference is theoretically traditionally divided into deduction and induction, a distinction that ...
s from complex
observational studies In fields such as epidemiology, social sciences, psychology and statistics, an observational study draws inferences from a sample to a population where the independent variable is not under the control of the researcher because of ethical conc ...
and
randomized trial In science, randomized experiments are the experiments that allow the greatest reliability and validity of statistical estimates of treatment effects. Randomization-based inference is especially important in experimental design and in survey s ...
s, particularly those in which the treatment varies with time. He is the 2013 recipient of the
Nathan Mantel Nathan Mantel (February 16, 1919 – May 25, 2002) was an American biostatistician best known for his work with William Haenszel, which led to the Mantel–Haenszel test and its associated estimate, the Mantel–Haenszel odds ratio. The Mantel– ...
Award for lifetime achievement in statistics and epidemiology, and a recipient of the 202
Rousseeuw Prize in Statistics
jointly with
Miguel Hernán Miguel Hernán is a Spanish–American epidemiologist. He is the Director of the CAUSALab, Kolokotrones Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Member of the Faculty at the Harvard–MIT P ...
, Eric Tchetgen-Tchetgen, Andrea Rotnitzky and Thomas Richardson. He graduated in
medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, and Health promotion ...
from
Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University i ...
in 1976. He is currently Mitchell L. and Robin LaFoley Dong Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He has published over 100 papers in
academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and ...
s and is an
ISI highly cited researcher The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was an academic publishing service, founded by Eugene Garfield in Philadelphia in 1956. ISI offered scientometric and bibliographic database services. Its specialty was citation indexing and analys ...
.


Biography

Robins attended
Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher ...
with the class of 1971, concentrating in mathematics and philosophy. He was elected to
Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...
, but did not graduate. He went on to attend Washington University School of Medicine, graduating in 1976, and practiced
Occupational Medicine Occupational medicine, until 1960 called industrial medicine, is the branch of medicine which is concerned with the maintenance of health in the workplace, including prevention and treatment of diseases and injuries, with secondary objectives ...
for several years. While working in occupational medicine, he attended basic courses in applied medical statistics at the
Yale School of Public Health The Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) was founded in 1915 by Charles-Edward Amory Winslow and is one of the oldest public health masters programs in the United States. It is consistently rated among the best schools of public health in the co ...
, but quickly came to the conclusion that the methodology used at the time was insufficiently rigorous to support causal conclusions.


Research

In 1986, Robins introduced a new framework for drawing causal inference from observational data. In this and other articles published around the same time, Robins showed that in non-experimental data, exposure is almost always time-dependent, and that standard methods such as regression are therefore almost always biased. This framework is mathematically very closely related to
Judea Pearl Judea Pearl (born September 4, 1936) is an Israeli-American computer scientist and philosopher, best known for championing the probabilistic approach to artificial intelligence and the development of Bayesian networks (see the article on belie ...
's graphical framework Non-Parametric Structural Equations Models, which Pearl developed independently shortly thereafter. Pearl's graphical models are a more restricted version of this theory. In his original paper on causal inference, Robins described two new methods for controlling for confounding bias, which can be applied in the generalized setting of time-dependent exposures: The G-formula and G-Estimation of Structural Nested Models. Later, he introduced a third class of models, Marginal Structural Models, in which the parameters are estimated using inverse probability of treatment weights. He has also contributed significantly to the theory of dynamic treatment regimes, which are of high significance in
comparative effectiveness research Comparative effectiveness research (CER) is the direct comparison of existing health care interventions to determine which work best for which patients and which pose the greatest benefits and harms. The core question of comparative effectiveness r ...
and personalized medicine. Together with Andrea Rotnitzky and other colleagues, in 1994 he introduced doubly robust estimators (derived from the influence functions) for statistical parameters in causal inference and missing data problems. The theory for doubly robust estimators has been highly influential in the field of ausal inferenceand has influenced practice in computer science, biostatistics, epidemiology, machine learning, social sciences, and statistics. In 2008, he also developed the theory of higher-order influence functions for statistical functional estimation with collaborators including Lingling Li, Eric Tchetgen Tchetgen, and
Aad van der Vaart Adrianus Willem "Aad" van der Vaart (born 12 July 1959) is a Dutch professor of Stochastics at the Delft Institute of Applied Mathematics at Delft University of Technology. Education and career Van der Vaart was born in Vlaardingen. He earned his ...
.


Selected publications

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Notes


References


James Robins — Mitchell L. and Robin LaFoley Dong Professor of Epidemiology
Harvard School of Public Health (Accessed 15 March 2008).
Dr. James M. Robins — Bibliography
Harvard School of Public Health (Accessed 15 March 2008). * Gehrman, Elizabeth (March 23, 2006

''Harvard University Gazette''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Robins, James American epidemiologists American statisticians Year of birth missing (living people) Harvard School of Public Health faculty Living people Washington University School of Medicine alumni Biostatisticians Fellows of the American Statistical Association Harvard College alumni