Fully Funded PhD Studentship in Medical Biostatistics, Causal Inference and Statistical Machine Learning: Developing Novel Statistical Methods for Causal Inference Using Electronic Health Records

Start Date: September 2026 Duration: 4 years (Structured PhD)

Project Overview

Applications are invited for a fully funded PhD studentship in Medical Biostatistics, Causal Inference and Statistical Machine Learning within the School of Medicine at the University of Limerick. This is a methodologically focused PhD for candidates with strong quantitative backgrounds who wish to develop novel statistical methods for causal inference using large-scale observational healthcare data. The project will address fundamental methodological challenges in estimating causal treatment effects from longitudinal electronic health records, including dynamic treatment strategies, time-varying confounding, treatment-effect heterogeneity, missing data, competing risks and high-dimensional covariates. Research will sit at the interface of medical biostatistics, causal inference, semiparametric statistics and statistical machine learning, with the primary emphasis on developing new statistical methodology rather than simply applying existing methods

Research Areas

The project may include methodological development in:

• Target trial emulation
• Dynamic treatment regimes
• Semiparametric and nonparametric estimation
• Doubly robust and debiased machine learning 
• Heterogeneous treatment effect estimation 
• Longitudinal and survival analysis
• Propensity score methods and overlap weighting
• Transportability and generalisability
• Sensitivity analysis
• Reproducible statistical computing and open-source software

Methodological developments will be motivated by large-scale healthcare datasets, including electronic health records and other linked observational data resources.

Funding The studentship includes:

• Fully funded 4-year Structured PhD 
• €25,000 annual tax-free stipend
• EU tuition fee waiver
• Conference, workshop and specialist training support
• Computing resources and laptop provided

Candidate Profile Applicants should hold (or expect to obtain) a First Class or Upper Second Class Honours degree (or equivalent) in Statistics, Biostatistics, Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Data Science, Computer Science, Econometrics, Epidemiology or another closely related quantitative discipline.

Applicants should demonstrate:

• Strong mathematical and statistical ability
• Experience with statistical programming (preferably R)
• Interest in statistical methodology, causal inference and machine learning
• Excellent communication and problem-solving skills

An MSc and experience in causal inference, longitudinal data analysis or survival analysis are desirable but not essential.

The successful candidate will join an interdisciplinary research environment with opportunities to publish in leading journals, present at international conferences, attend specialist workshops and develop open-source statistical software. Primary Supervisor: Dr Maurice O'Connell, Associate Professor in Medical Biostatistics, School of Medicine, University of Limerick

Applications Applications should include a cover letter, CV, academic transcripts and contact details for two academic referees. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled. For informal enquiries, contact Dr Maurice O'Connell at maurice.oconnell@ul.ie.

Further information and full project description: https://sites.google.com/site/mauricemartinoconnell/phd- opportunities

Closing Date: 24/08/2026