Interested in a PhD in Biostatistics at Karolinska Institute?

30 april, 2024

A doctoral student position is available within the biostatistics group at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics (MEB) at Karolinska Institutet.

The biostatistics group comprises 4 professors, 3 senior lecturers, several PhD-level and masters-level statisticians, and doctoral students. The group is involved in a wide variety of research projects, including the development of statistical methods, population-based cohort and case-control studies, survival analysis, twin and family studies, predictive modelling, genetic epidemiology, causal inference, and bioinformatics.

About the project

This PhD project consists of both statistical methodology development and clinical application in the field of population-based cancer patient survival. The overall aim is to evaluate biases arising from missing cancer stage data – an often overlooked aspect in registry data – and develop methods to accommodate such complexities.

The performance of the most common approach of dealing with missing data, multiple imputation (MI), has not been assessed in the settings of cancer epidemiology. This project aims to fill this gap in the literature, leading to significant methodological advancements. The newly developed methods will be applied to investigate work-related outcomes post-diagnosis for colorectal cancer patients in Sweden.

Furthermore, we aim to delve into the underlying determinants, such as differential stage and treatment, that contribute to the observed disparities in working life years lost after a colorectal cancer diagnosis, particularly across socioeconomic groups. The applied work will use a large data resource from the colorectal cancer quality register that includes all patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer in Sweden.

Throughout the doctoral project, the candidate will have the opportunity to master a diverse range of methodologies, including survival analysis, competing events analysis, methods for dealing with missing data (such as multiple imputation), flexible parametric survival modelling, Monte Carlo simulation, causal inference and causal mediation analysis.

About the supervisors

The successful applicant will be supervised by Elisavet Syriopoulou (Assistant Professor in Biostatistics at MEB).

Co-supervisors will be Therese Andersson (Senior Lecturer in Biostatistics at MEB), Caroline Dietrich (Statistician at the Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet) and Caroline Nordenvall (Associate Professor of Surgery at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet, and clinically active colorectal surgeon at Karolinska University Hospital).

Who are we looking for?

We are looking for a highly motivated PhD student with a background in biostatistics, statistics, or mathematical statistics.

The successful candidate is expected to take a leading role throughout the research project, with support from the supervisors. This includes the development of statistical methodology and statistical analysis plans, data processing and analysis, taking relevant courses, and participating in departmental seminars and international conferences.

Application