I am currently building collaborations at the University of Iowa, particularly through our Causal Inference Collaboratory. I am involved in the Clinical Trials Statistical through our Data Management Center and NeuroNEXT. My main methodologic focus has been on methods for surrogate endpoints in clinical trials, and my general research interests include clinical trials, causal inference, survival analysis, longitudinal measures, Bayesian methods, futility analysis, biomarkers, and diabetes, neurologic, and cancer applications. At the University of Michigan, I began research on the NIH Cancer Training Grant in Biostatistics in 2016 and was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. During my PhD, I was awarded the University of Michigan Department of Biostatistics Excellence in Research Award Honorable Mention. Recently, I was awarded at 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.
Below is a short list of my published projects. Please refer to my Google Scholar page to get a complete list of my papers and presentations.
*equal contribution authors
-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. (accepted).
-Williams, P.A., Roberts, E.K., Nguyen, Q.A., Rahmouni, K. (2025). Identifying Unimodal Finite Mixture Models in Data Sets Using Distribution Shifting – A Novel Approach. 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.
-Abrahamowicz, M., Beauchamp, M.E., Roberts, E.K., Taylor, J.M.G. (2025). Revisiting the Hazards of Hazard Ratios Through Simulations and Case Studies. European Journal of Epidemiology.
-Yu-Hsiang, W., McMurray, B., Hoth, K.F., Caraher, K., Oleson, J., Roberts, E., Dunn, C. (2025). Factors Associated with Auditory Lifestyle of Adult Cochlear Implant Users. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
-Cherwin, C., Hoang, J., Roberts, E.K., Mangalam, A. (2025). Gut Microbiome and Symptom Burden in Obese and Non-Obese Women Receiving Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer. Biological Research for Nursing.
-Tanaka, T., Roberts, E.K.,* Platt, J.* (2024). Reduced short-term survival following liver transplant in patients with acute-on-chronic liver failure: Reevaluating OPTN data. Hepatology Communications.
-Salerno, S., Roberts, E.K., Needham, B., McCormick, T., Mukherjee, B., Shi, X. What’s the Weight? Estimating Controlled Outcome Differences in Complex Surveys for Health Disparities Research. arXiv:2406.19597.
-Roberts, E. K., Luo, L., [7 authors], Brouwer, A. (2024). Time-Varying Associations of Patient Characteristics with Cancer Survival: An Analysis of SEER Data Across 14 Cancer Sites, 2004-2017. Cancer Causes and Control.
-Roberts, E. K., Elliott, M. R., & Taylor, J. M. (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.
-Roberts, E.K.*, Boss, J.*, Zota, A., Salerno, S., Mukherjee, B., Needham, B. (2022). Mediation Analysis of Race and Environmental Exposures on Telomere Length Using NHANES (1999-2002). Scientific Reports.
-Roberts, E.K., Gu, T., Mukherjee, B., Fristche, L. (2022). Estimating COVID-19 Vaccination Effectiveness Using Electronic Health Records of an Academic Medical Center in Michigan. AJPM Focus.
-Vornhagen, J., Roberts, E.K., … [13 authors] Bachman, M.A. (2022). Comparative Genomics Reveals Plasmid-Encoded Genes Associated with Klebsiella Infection in Colonized Patients. Nature Communications.
-Roberts, E. & Zhao, L. (2021). A Bayesian Mixture Model to Estimate Changepoints in Ordinal Predictors. International Journal of Biostatistics.
-Roberts, E. K., Elliott, M.R., Taylor, J.M.G. (2021). Incorporating Baseline Covariates to Validate Surrogate Endpoints with a Constant Biomarker Under Control Arm. Statistics in Medicine.
-Sun, Y., Patel, A., SantaLucia, J., Roberts, E., Zhao, L., Kaye, K., Rao, K., Bachman, M. (2021). Measurement of Klebsiella Intestinal Colonization Density to Assess Infection Risk. mSphere.
-Needham, B. L., Salerno, S., Roberts, E., Boss, J., Allgood, K. L., Mukherjee, B. (2020). Do Black/White Differences in Telomere Length Depend on Socioeconomic Status? Biodemography and Social Biology.
-Hanks, J. E., Kovatch, K. J., Ali S. A., Roberts E., Durham, A. B., Smith, J. D., Bradford, C. R., Malloy, K. M., Boonstra, P. S., McLean, S. A. (2020). Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy in Head & Neck Melanoma: Long-Term Outcomes, Prognostic Value, & Accuracy. Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery.
-Siontis, B., McHugh, J., Roberts, E., Zhao, L., Thomas, D., Baker, L., Owen, D., Biermann, J.S., Schuetze, S.M., Chugh, R. (2019). Radiation-Associated Versus Sporadic Osteosarcoma: A Single-Institution Experience. Frontiers in Oncology.
-East, E. G., Roberts, E., Zhao, L., & Jorns, J. M. (2019). Repeat Biomarker Status in Breast Resection Specimens With Controlled Cold Ischemic Time. American journal of clinical pathology.
-Geer, M.*, Roberts, E.*, Shango M., Till B., Smith S., Abbas .H, Hill B., Kaplan J., Barr P.M., Caimi P.F., Stephens D.M., Lin E., Herrera A.F., Rosenbaum E., Amengual K., Boonstra P.S., Devata S., Wilcox R.A., Kaminski M., and Phillips T. (2019). Multicentre retrospective study of intravascular large B‐cell lymphoma treated at academic institutions within the United States. British journal of haematology.
-Kahn, J. M., Cole, P. D., Blonquist, T. M., T. M., Stevenson, K., Jin, Z., Barrera, S., Davila, R., Roberts, E., [10 authors], Kelly, K. (2018). An investigation of toxicities and survival in Hispanic children and adolescents with ALL: Results from the Dana‐Farber Cancer Institute ALL Consortium protocol 05‐001. Pediatric blood & cancer.
-Muller, K. E., Roberts, E., Zhao, L., & Jorns, J. M. (2017). Isolated Atypical Lobular Hyperplasia Diagnosed on Breast Biopsy: Low Upgrade Rate on Subsequent Excision With Long-Term Follow-up. Archives of pathology & laboratory medicine.