Developing and applying statistical methodology for clinical trials and causal inference, grounded in real‑world scientific collaboration.

At the University of Iowa, I am building and leading interdisciplinary research partnerships through our Causal Inference Collaboratory and am involved in multicenter design and analysis of clinical trials through our Clinical Trials Statistical and Data Management Center via the Data Coordinating Center and NeuroNEXT. A central focus of my work is at the overlap of these topics, such as the evaluation and validation of surrogate and intermediate endpoints in clinical trials. More broadly, my methodological interests include:

Clinical trial design and analysis
Causal inference
Survival and time‑to‑event analysis
Longitudinal and repeated‑measures data
Bayesian methods
Futility and interim monitoring

These methods are developed and applied in substantive collaborations across diabetes, neurologic and psychiatric conditions, and cancer.

Training and Recognition

My research training began at the University of Michigan, where I joined the NIH Cancer Training Grant in Biostatistics in 2016 and was later supported as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow.

During my doctoral training, I received the University of Michigan Department of Biostatistics Excellence in Research Award (Honorable Mention). More recently, my work has been recognized with the American Statistical Association Lifetime Data Science Paper Award, as well as the Junior Faculty Opportunity Award and New Faculty Research Award at the University of Iowa.

Selected Publications

Below is a selected list of peer‑reviewed publications reflecting my methodological and collaborative research agenda.
A complete and up‑to‑date list of papers and presentations is available on my Google Scholar profile.

Sursely, A. M., Nash, S. H., Sadler, A. G., Roberts, E. K., Torner, J. C., Platt, J. M. (2025)
Exploring contextual details in suicide precipitating circumstances: A qualitative content analysis of NVDRS narrative reports
Journal of Psychiatry and Brain Science

Sursely, A. M., Roberts, E. K., Nash, S. H., Sadler, A. G., Torner, J. C., Platt, J. M. (2025)
Crisis circumstances in U.S. suicide deaths: A latent class analysis of NVDRS data from 2013–2021
American Journal of Preventive Medicine

Smith, M. J., Roberts, E. K., Charlton, M. E., Oleson, J. J. (2025)
Incorporating small‑area estimation into mediation analyses with areal datasets
Spatial and Spatio‑temporal Epidemiology

Williams, P. A., Roberts, E. K., Nguyen, Q. A., Rahmouni, K. (2025)
Identifying unimodal finite mixture models using distribution shifting
Results in Engineering

Tanaka, T., Roberts, E. K., Platt, J., Axelrod, D. (2025)
Longitudinal assessment of performance status in U.S. liver transplantation: National trends and survival implications
Transplantation Direct

Roberts, E. K., Elliott, M. R., Taylor, J. M. G. (2023)
Surrogacy validation for time‑to‑event outcomes with illness–death frailty models
Biometrical Journal

Roberts, E. K., Elliott, M. R., Taylor, J. M. G. (2023)
Solutions for surrogacy validation with longitudinal outcomes for a gene therapy
Biometrics