Ms. Elisa Sheng, a PhD student in the department of biostatistics at the University of Washington School of Public Health, won first place in the student award competition of the 2015 Mental Health Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association.

The paper, based on her dissertation work with Dr. Andrew Zhou, professor of biostatistics, is titled “Estimating causal effects of treatment in RCTs with provider and subject noncompliance”.

The paper and Ms. Sheng’s dissertation research develop statistical ways to infer cause in randomized clinical trials where providers may not comply with the assigned treatment protocol and subjects may not take the treatment provided. Her research is motivated by studies of psychotherapy, made difficult by the fact that both therapist and patient compliance cannot be controlled.

Ms. Sheng will present her paper at an upcoming meeting in Seattle of the Joint Statistical Meeting of the American Statistical Association.