Edward Kennedy PhD

Dr. Edward Kennedy, PhD is a Penn alum through and through—before completing his PhD in Biostatistics in 2016, he earned his BA in Mathematics (2007) and MA in Statistics (2014) from the University of Pennsylvania. He also obtained his MS in Biostatistics from the University of Michigan in 2009. During his time as a doctoral student, Dr. Kennedy was advised by Penn faculty members, Dylan Small, PhD, the Universal Furniture Professor and the Chair of the Department of Statistics and Data Science at The Wharton School; and Marshall Joffe, MD, MPH, PhD, a Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, who passed in 2021.

Dr. Kennedy is an Associate Professor in Statistics & Data Science in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, accepting a faculty position in 2016 after the completion of his PhD in Biostatistics. His research interests lie at the intersection of causal inference, machine learning, and nonparametric theory, especially in settings involving high-dimensional and otherwise complex data. His applied work focuses on problems in criminal justice, health services, medicine, and public policy. Dr. Kennedy is a recipient of the Mortimer Spiegelman Award for outstanding contributions to health statistics, the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, and the Thomas Ten Have Award for exceptional research in causal inference. We recently connected with Dr. Kennedy about his academic journey and experiences as a PhD student in the Graduate Group in Epidemiology and Biostatistics (GGEB) at the University of Pennsylvania.