Michael Schomaker

𝗖𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗣𝗵𝗗 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: We are offering several PhD positions across our various research areas, open to highly qualified candidates.
‼️ The application portal will be open from 15 October to 14 November 2025.

Find out more: mcml.ai/opportunitie...

🚨Job alert🚨

Premium tenure-track (ass to full prof) in "𝐌𝐋 𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐬" @unituebingen.bsky.social made possible by @ml4science.bsky.social

Spread the word and feel free to reach out if you have any questions about the position or the environment.

Link: shorturl.at/QHZ5G

The ideal trial: defining causal estimands that balance relevance and feasibility in target trial emulations and actual randomized trials Causal inference is the goal of randomized trials and many observational studies. The first step in a formal causal inference framework is to define the causal estimand, and in both types of study thi...

NEW PAPER! (in press in EPIDEMIOLOGY)

Have you wondered:
- How to specify a target trial: as an ideal trial or something else?
- What biases do target trial emulations and actual RCTs share?
- How does it all relate to potential outcomes?

Read here! 👉 arxiv.org/abs/2405.10026
#EpiSky #CausalSky

https://hsph.harvard.edu/research/causalab/seminars/

The CAUSALab Methods Series @ki.se is back!

Fall 2025 lineup kicks off Sep 23 with Vanessa Didelez (BIPS), “Causal mediation and separable treatments in time-to-event analyses.”

All talks are virtual, except for Nov. 4, 2025 hybrid session.

Learn more & register:
hsph.harvard.edu/research/cau...

YouTube video by Eh!woza Addiction | A Journey of Recovery and Hope

[TRAILER]🎥 Addiction is a film created by high school learners from @IkamvaYouthSA Masiphumelele, Fish Hoek. It tells the stories of young people who have struggled with substance abuse.

Film by: Anovuyo Gazi, Mamoya Mohapi and Mmamei Mofokeng

Full video: youtube.com/watch?v=ob47...

I think missing data is a CI problem (counterfactual is "would have observed the data") but not the opposite. E.g., recasting mediation analyses etc as a missing data problems seems contrived.

YouTube video by Eh!woza Beyond the Fear | Living Through the Shadow of Violence

[TRAILER] Beyond The Fear unfolds through the voices of women like Zimkitha, her mother, and local resident Noluvo, each navigating a landscape shaped by fear, grief, and survival.

Part of the Learner Doccies pilot in Xhora Mouth with Bulungula Incubator.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnIQ...

🎉 Honored to receive the IJAR Young Researcher Award (🥈)

The award is given to researchers who demonstrate excellence at an early stage of their scientific careers, sponsored by the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning (IJAR).

isipta25.sipta.org/awards

xkcd comic about replication crisis https://xkcd.com/3117

@xkcd.com again provides for your meta-science slides (link xkcd.com/3117). I do wish we'd stop talking about a "crisis", bc it's been here for generations. Ppl used to pipette by mouth ffs. Enrico Fermi won a Nobel prize for a false result. But that doesn't mean we can't do better going forward.

Performance of Cross‐Validated Targeted Maximum Likelihood Estimation Background Advanced methods for causal inference, such as targeted maximum likelihood estimation (TMLE), require specific convergence rates and the Donsker class condition for valid statistical esti.....

🚨 New paper in Statistics in Medicine!
We compare TMLE vs CV-TMLE in tricky simulations:
✅ Misspecification
✅ Limited overlap
✅ High dimensions
✅ Super Learner + cross-validation

Who performs best?
Read it: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
#CausalInference #TMLE #CVTMLE

Francois Venter | Slow motion denialism: Our leaders are allowing the HIV response to collapse South Africa is staging a sequel to Mbeki-era denialism, only this time, the science, solutions, and costs are clearer, argues Professor Francois Venter.

MUST READ | South Africa is staging a sequel to Mbeki-era denialism, only this time, the science, solutions, and costs are clearer, argues Professor @francoisventer.bsky.social‬. @groundup.org.za

www.spotlightnsp.co.za/2025/07/16/f...

1/ NEW R PACKAGE! For estimating the impact of potential interventions on multiple mediators in countering exposure effects (led by @cttc101.bsky.social)

- Paper👉 tinyurl.com/ye26jsps
- Package👉 tinyurl.com/yuh4kens

Thread shows published examples of how the method can be used! #EpiSky #CausalSky

Rejoinder to Commentaries on: On the Uses and Abuses of Regression Models: A Call for Reform of Statistical Practice and Teaching Click on the article title to read more.

NOW PUBLISHED! Featured article + 6 Commentaries + Rejoinder: “On the Uses and Abuses of Regression Models: A Call for Reform of Statistical Practice and Teaching” with my colleague John Carlin
tinyurl.com/2z2tmkhh
@cebu-melbourne.bsky.social @vicbiostat.bsky.social #EpiSky #CausalSky #StatsSky

THE WAIT BEGINS | Six months of HIV protection in a single shot. When will it arrive in SA and at what cost? Find out: shorturl.at/AphjB

Join our mailing list: shorturl.at/Ntzoa

Why is it different?

Do-PFN is a radical new approach to causal inference, replacing standard assumptions of a ground-truth causal model (Pearl) or structural assumptions (Rubin) with a prior over SCMs—our modeling assumptions lie in our synthetic data-generating process. [6/8]

also from the meme archives

I feel like all the debates in the 20th century were for nothing sometimes. People used to argue that Bayes couldn't work. The James-Stein estimator was a big deal! Everything uses gradients now and is inherently about regularization. Let the 20th century go, I say.

A primer on neural networks Neural networks are a class of machine-learning algorithms inspired by the structure of the nervous system.1 An important result underlying the utility of

Have you wondered what an artificial neural network really does (and how it might just be regression all the way down)?

Well I have a new AJE Classroom paper on the basics of how neural networks work

academic.oup.com/aje/article/...

Francois Venter | Our HIV programme is collapsing — and our government is nowhere to be seen We’re watching the largest HIV treatment programme in the world unravelling in real time. We don’t need perfection, but we do need a combination of urgency, action, and strategy to save it, argues Pro...

INACTION? While HIV projects unravel, President Cyril Ramaphosa and the GNU are nowhere to be seen. Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, once praised for his HIV leadership, offers no leadership, communication, or urgency, argues Professor Francois Venter.

www.spotlightnsp.co.za/2025/04/23/f...

Are children living with HIV being left behind? What the stats tell us Massive gains have been made in reducing new HIV infections and deaths in children. Yet, many of the statistics for children still look worse than those for adults. Elri Voigt asked experts why this i...

Great article from @spotlightnsp.bsky.social, with contributions from CIDER's Kim Anderson and @leighjohnsoncpt.bsky.social, explaining some of the complex dynamics of paediatric HIV in South Africa. www.spotlightnsp.co.za/2025/05/26/a...

Wir suchen jemanden, der im WS 25/26 unseren vakanten Lehrstuhl für Statistik und Quantitative Methoden in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften vertritt. Auch die Dauerstelle wird bald ausgeschrieben. Wir freuen uns über nette, engagierte Kollegen! Gerne teilen... Link im nächsten Post.

Ok frequentists, let’s call a truce. This has gone too far.

Associate Professor at the Oslo Centre for Biostatistics and Epidemiology (276924) | University of Oslo Job title: Associate Professor at the Oslo Centre for Biostatistics and Epidemiology (276924), Employer: University of Oslo, Deadline: Sunday, May 18, 2025

Join us in beautiful Oslo!
Associate Professor @ocbe.bsky.social
@uio.no
Deadline May 18th
www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

Jeremy Labrecque May 20 Methods Series talk, "Before and after causal inference: recognizing causal questions and answering them when assumptions are violated."

How do we answer #causal questions when assumptions are violated?

@jeremylabrecque.bsky.social (Erasmus MC) continues the 2025 Methods Series @ki.se
📆 May 20, 2025
⏰ 15.00 CEST/9.00 ET
📍 All Methods Series talks virtual

Register to attend online 👇
stats.sender.net/forms/e7JD1d...

Researcher with statistical competence in causal inference for infectious disease | FINN.no The Section for Modelling and Bioinformatics, in the Department of Method Development and Analytics, is recruiting a researcher for a permanent position. In

Open permanent position as researcher in causal inference for infectious diseases at the Norwegian Institute for Public Health! Deadline May 16.

www.finn.no/job/fulltime...

Check out the last Methods Series talk now on YouTube:
youtu.be/QuQnZ4don54?...

The cost of the plunge: The impact and cost of a cessation of PEPFAR-supported services in South Africa ABSTRACT Background Globally, shifts in United States foreign aid policy have put HIV funding under duress. South Africa is unique in the region because its HIV programme is largely domestically funde...

Our new preprint provides more detail on previously reported impacts of HIV funding cuts: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

NEW PAPER: Updated CONSORT-2025 for reporting randomised trials is now available in the @bmj.com @jama.com , @thelancet.bsky.social, @plos.org and @naturemedicine.bsky.social

—> www.bmj.com/content/389/...

#openscience #transparency #medsky #statssky #episky

Targeting mediating mechanisms of social disparities with an interventional effects framework, applied to the gender pay gap in Western Germany The Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition is a widely used method to explain social disparities. However, assigning causal meaning to its estimated components requires strong assumptions that often lack explic...

She uses an analysis of the gender pay gap using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel to illustrate these points, building on her prior work on defining & identifying estimands when targeting mediating mechanisms of social disparities. (arxiv.org/abs/2411.07368)

Another nice #EuroCIM2025 poster by Christiane Didden. She presents the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition & how we think about the “explained” part of disparities—specifically in the context of the gender pay gap....