Post-Graduate Stories

Tatiana Krikella Will Help to Develop “Multi-scale Estimation Methods for Infectious Disease Management”

As a 2024 CANSSI Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow, Tatiana Krikella will take part in a comprehensive program that involves teaching, interdisciplinary or applied collaboration, professional development, and a research project that aims to aid in public health management of infectious disease outbreaks by providing real-time, understandable estimates of essential disease parameters, particularly two key parameters—the effective reproduction number and the serial interval—that are not well-understood. She will work under the supervision of Professors Jane Heffernan and Hanna Jankowski (York University) and Professor Quazi Rahman (Trent University).

Program: CANSSI Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship
Region: National
Date: 2024–2026

Project Focus Areas

Tatiana Krikella will participate in a major research project whose scientific objective is to aid in public health management of infectious disease outbreaks by providing real-time, understandable estimates of essential disease parameters. The research team will initially focus on two key parameters, the effective reproduction number and the serial interval. Numerous estimators of these quantities exist, yet their properties—especially behaviour under model mis-specification—are not well-understood. The statistical objective is therefore to study these estimators in depth and then to develop new methods that will allow for multi-scale estimation. The key techniques for the multi-scale component will be either hierarchical Bayesian or machine learning pathways. The project will rely on data provided by Public Health.

Tatiana will also participate in a wide range of other activities designed to give her a broadly based training experience. In addition to her collaborations at York University and Trent University, she will interact with public health and government research groups in various Canadian jurisdictions, including Public Health Ontario, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the National Research Council of Canada. She will also teach a course during each year of her fellowship, mentor a graduate student, and present the team’s work at group meetings and conferences. This experience will be supplemented by interdisciplinary research and communication training and participation in the York University POLARIS EDI training course.

Getting to Know Tatiana

Tatiana Krikella is completing a PhD in biostatistics at the University of Waterloo under the supervision of Joel A. Dubin. She has also participated in a cross-disciplinary project with Anindya Sen in the Department of Economics that uses statistical learning methods to predict the hospital readmission of cardiac patients.

Tatiana’s stated goal is to become a professor. She views the CANSSI Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship as a valuable step in that direction.

“Through [the CDPF program], I wish to become a more well-rounded researcher and delve deeper into areas of statistics that I have not explored to date … Without CANSSI, I may not have had the opportunity to explore topics beyond my depth of knowledge.”

She also points to the teaching opportunities that her fellowship will provide.

“I have been a teaching assistant for many years, having even taught my own course, and this is an aspect of academia that I enjoy. I find great fulfillment in helping students reach their full potential. The CANSSI fellowship will help to refine my teaching skills, and give me the opportunity to mentor a graduate student; a possibility that I look forward to.”

Through [the CDPF program], I wish to become a more well-rounded researcher and delve deeper into areas of statistics that I have not explored to date.