Upcoming Events

The Seminar Series on Infectious Disease Modeling is co-hosted by the Department of Environmental Health Science, Department of Epidemiology, and ICAP at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. This seminar series features experts presenting the latest research in infectious disease modeling and epidemiology from various disciplines. The seminar will be offered in a hybrid format, with both in-person and Zoom options. Attending over Zoom requires registration. Affiliates outside of Columbia are welcome to attend via Zoom. This event is presented by Professor Marc Lipsitch, Harvard University.  Seminar Title: Drugs, vaccines, and coexistence: progress and challenges in understanding the population dynamics of Streptococcus pneumoniae Abstract: This talk will discuss efforts through experiments, epidemiology, computational modeling, and genomics to understand three aspects of the population dynamics of Streptococcus pneumoniae and (for the third one) more broadly in bacteria: 1) coexistence of many serotypes before vaccines were introduced; 2) how the population changed (the details of "serotype replacement") in the era of vaccines targeting particular serotypes but not all; 3) the coexistence of drug-resistant and -susceptible strains of this and many other bacterial species. For the speakers and dates of the future events, please check our website.

Thursday, January 23rd, ARB Hess Commons, 11:45am  Levin Lecture  Harsh Parikh, PhD Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Biostatistics John Hopkins University Interpretable Causal Inference for Advancing Healthcare and Public Health Abstract:  Causal inference methods are essential across healthcare, public health, and social sciences, helping understand complex systems and inform decision-making. While integrating machine learning (ML) and statistical techniques has improved causal estimation, many of these methods depend on black-box ML approaches. This raises concerns about the communicability, auditability, and trustworthiness of causal estimates, especially in high-stakes contexts. My research addresses these challenges by developing interpretable causal inference methods. In this presentation, I introduce an approach for bridging the research-to-practice gap by generalizing randomized controlled trial (RCT) findings to target populations. Although RCTs are fundamental for understanding causal effects, extending their findings to broader populations is difficult due to effect heterogeneity and the underrepresentation of certain subgroups. Our work tackles this issue by identifying and interpretably characterizing underrepresented subgroups in RCTs. Specifically, we propose the Rashomon Set of Optimal Trees (ROOT), an optimization-based method that produces interpretable characteristics of underrepresented subgroups. This approach helps researchers communicate findings more effectively. We apply ROOT to extend inferences from the Starting Treatment with Agonist Replacement Therapies (START) trial -- assessing the effectiveness of opioid use disorder medication -- to the real-world population represented by the Treatment Episode Dataset: Admissions (TEDS-A). By refining target populations using ROOT, our framework offers a systematic approach to enhance decision-making accuracy and inform future trials in diverse populations.   About the Biostatistics Departmental Seminars & Lectures for Spring 2025: During the Fall and Spring semesters, the Department of Biostatistics holds regular seminars on Thursdays, called the Levin Lecture Series, on a wide variety of topics which are of interest to both students and faculty. Over each semester, there are also often guest lectures outside the regular Thursday Levin Lecture Series, to provide a robust schedule the covers the wide range of topics in Biostatistics. The speakers are invited guests who spend the day of their seminar discussing their research with Biostatistics faculty and students. All members of the Columbia Community are welcome, though most lectures are held in the Medical Center Campus and require a CUIMC ID to enter the building. No registration is necessary to attend. **Lectures are in-person only unless marked otherwise.**  

Join the Jewish Cultural ERG for a documentary film screening of Torn. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Nim Shapira, subjects Alana Zeitchik and Elisha Fine, and artists Nitzan Mintz and Dede Bandaid. Torn delves into the controversy surrounding the 'KIDNAPPED' poster campaign, a grassroots effort to raise awareness about the 240 hostages taken by Hamas. These posters quickly became polarizing symbols, sparking intense clashes between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine activists and turning New York City's streets into battlegrounds of ideology and emotion. The film explores the motivations behind activists putting up and tearing down the posters, unraveling the complexities of this intense 'paper arm' proxy war, fought thousands of miles from the actual conflict. Torn is a 75-minute independent documentary, produced and filmed in New York City. https://www.torn-film.com/ Torn Film Trailer This event is open to all Columbia ID holders. If you have any additional questions please contact custaffdiversity@cumc.columbia.edu.

Friday, January 24th, ARB Hess Commons, 11:45am Guest Lecture    Eric Sun PhD Student Stanford University Machine learning for aging and spatial omics Abstract:  Aging is a highly complex process and the greatest risk factor for many chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. Recent spatial and single-cell omics technologies have enabled the high-dimensional profiling of complex biology including that underlying aging. As such, new machine learning and computational methods are needed to unlock important insights from spatial and single-cell omics datasets. First, I present the development of high-resolution machine learning models (‘spatial aging clocks’) that can measure the aging of individual cells in the brain. Using these spatial aging clocks, I discovered that some cell types can dramatically influence the aging of nearby cells. Next, I present new computational and statistical methods for overcoming the gene coverage limitations of existing spatial omics technologies, which have enabled the discovery of gene pathways underlying the spatial effects of brain aging. Finally, I introduce several methods for improving the reliability and robustness of high-dimensional data visualizations.   About the Biostatistics Departmental Seminars & Lectures for Spring 2025: During the Fall and Spring semesters, the Department of Biostatistics holds regular seminars on Thursdays, called the Levin Lecture Series, on a wide variety of topics which are of interest to both students and faculty. Over each semester, there are also often guest lectures outside the regular Thursday Levin Lecture Series, to provide a robust schedule the covers the wide range of topics in Biostatistics. The speakers are invited guests who spend the day of their seminar discussing their research with Biostatistics faculty and students. All members of the Columbia Community are welcome, though most lectures are held in the Medical Center Campus and require a CUIMC ID to enter the building. No registration is necessary to attend. **Lectures are in-person only unless marked otherwise.**