“Death and Taxes: Taking Causal Inference into the Real World”

Nandita Mitra is giving a webinar this Tuesday at noon with the above title and the following abstract:

Statisticians develop methods with the hope that they will ultimately inform decisions and improve the world around us. But taking causal inference into the real world requires more than choosing the right estimator: it requires identifying the question that matters, engaging deeply with its context, and communicating statistical reasoning to very different audiences. In this talk, I will draw on two experiences in which causal inference took me well beyond traditional statistical applications. I will first discuss my experience serving as an expert witness in a death penalty case involving racial disparities in jury selection, where ideas including confounding, mediation, and individual- versus population-level effects had to be translated into compelling and understandable arguments in a court of law. I will then describe my involvement in evaluating Philadelphia’s excise tax on sweetened beverages, where cross-border purchasing led us to confront interference and develop methods to better inform policy decisions. Through these examples, I will reflect on how statisticians can seek opportunities to bring their expertise to consequential real-world problems, and on the importance of collaboration, communication, and stepping outside our usual academic boundaries. Most importantly, you don’t have to choose between being a methodological statistician and having an impact outside statistics.

This looks interesting. Click on the link above to register for the talk and get the zoom link.