Wellesley College statistician Anny-Claude Joseph will present new methods to strengthen causal analysis in environmental health research by integrating social network theory into the Rubin Causal Model (RCM).

Her work addresses a gap in air pollution epidemiology: the RCM assumes that one location's health outcomes are unaffected by neighboring areas' pollution levels, an assumption typically violated in practice. Joseph's methodology has been tested through simulation studies and has direct applications for evaluating environmental policy.

Joseph, who holds a PhD from Virginia Commonwealth University, has taught statistics and data science at Wellesley for over two decades.