Personal Statement
Schadrac Agbla is a tenure track fellow in Biostatistics with particular interest in causal inference. He was an MRC Early Career Development Fellow at the University of Liverpool from 2019 to 2022. He has been developing a randomisation-based method for causal inference using machine learning techniques and investigating the causal factors for preterm birth and their effects on early childhood development delay. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Applied Statistics from the University of Abomey-Calavi (Benin), an MSc in Medical Statistics and a PhD in Biostatistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). He was awarded an MRC International Statistics & Epidemiology Group (formerly called MRC International Tropical Group) Fellowship to study his MSc in Medical Statistics at LSHTM followed by a year of placement at the MRC Unit The Gambia. His PhD was funded by an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) studentship and addressed causal questions using the instrumental variables method in cluster randomised trials where there is non-adherence to treatment. He received the 2020 Bradford Hill prize for the best statistical methodology thesis at LSHTM. Aside from his methodological work, Schadrac has extensive experience in study design and data analysis across a wide range of fields spanning reproductive health, infectious and non-communicable diseases. He is an Associate Fellow of the MRC International Statistics & Epidemiology Group at LSHTM and an external lecturer at the Institute of Tropical Medicine and International Health at Charité University-Berlin (Germany) and at the Laboratoire de Biomathématiques et d'Estimations Forestières at the University of Abomey-Calavi (Benin).

Research Overview
1. Co-Investigator on a Discovery project funded by the Australian Research Council (2021-2023). Project title: “Increasing the efficiency and interpretability of stepped wedge trials”. This project aims to develop highly efficient trial designs and new methods for the estimation of causally interpretable effects when adherence to interventions is not perfect. Principal Investigator: Dr Jessica Kasza, Monash University.

2. Co-Investigator on an EDCTP-funded project on Capacity development for disease outbreak and epidemic response in sub-Saharan Africa, in collaboration with Africa CDC (2021-2024). Project title: Training Epidemiologists and Biostatisticians for enhanced response to disease outbreak and epidemic in West-Africa. Principal Investigator: Prof. Romain Lucas Glele Kakai, University of Abomey-Calavi (Benin).

3. Collaborator on an UCL/GCRF and NIHR grant. Project title: Evaluating the use of dried blood and CSF spots as a means of storing and transporting clinical material for molecular diagnosis of invasive meningococcal disease. Principal Investigator: Dr Brenda Anna Kwambana, University College London (UK).

4. Collaborator on the DIAgnostics for Multidrug Resistant Tuberculosis in Africa (DIAMA) project, a HIV-related project (Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe (DREAMS)) and the Action Leveraging Evidence to Reduce perinatal morTality and morbidity in sub-Saharan Africa (ALERT) project.