Laura Forastiere, PhD

Laura Forastiere is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at Yale School of Public Health. Her methodological research is focused on methods for assessing causal inference for evidence-based research, exploring the mechanisms underlying the effect of an intervention including causal pathways through intermediate variables or mechanisms of peer influence and spillover between connected units. Her research explores modeling, inferential, and other methodological issues that often arise in applied problems with complex clustered and network data, and standard statistical theory and methods are no longer adequate to support the goals of the analysis. Laura is eager to apply advanced statistical methodology to provide evidence on effective strategies to improve the health and wellbeing of vulnerable populations. She is particularly interested in exploring behavioral interventions that, relying on theories of behavioral economics and social phycology, exploit social interactions and peer influence among individuals. She is involved in many program evaluations and research studies in low- and middle-income countries on malaria, HIV and other STDs, maternal and child health, nutrition, cognitive development, health insurance and microcredit. Dr. Forastiere received her Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Florence (Italy) and postdoc training in statistics and biostatistics at Harvard University. Prior to joining the Department of Biostatistics at Yale School of Public Health, she was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Yale Institute for Network Science.