Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics Dissertation Defense: Jihyeon Kwon, MS
Friday, July 31, 2026
1:30 PM-2:30 PM
The Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics is
proud to announce the dissertation defense of Jihyeon Kwon, MS.
Dissertation Title: Restricted
Multivariate Conditional Autoregressive Models for Disease Mapping
Abstract: Reliable disease-mapping
estimates are crucial for comparing health outcomes across regions and
demographic groups. The widely used Bayesian CAR model of Besag, York, and
Mollié and multivariate CAR (MCAR), its multivariate extension, which borrows
strength across space and multiple data sources, can overly smooth spatial
patterns and yield overly precise estimates when data are sparse, causing the
model rather than the data to dominate inference. This work evaluates the
informativeness of MCAR models and proposes a restriction strategy that limits
smoothing and keeps it consistent across outcomes and over time, illustrated
through county-level mortality estimation. The framework is then extended to
binomially distributed survey data and applied to tract-level obesity
prevalence in Philadelphia, demonstrating how accounting for model
informativeness can impact conclusions about health trends and disparities.
Jihyeon (Ji) Kwon is a PhD candidate in
Biostatistics at Drexel University, advised by Dr. Harrison Quick. Her research
focuses on Bayesian spatial modeling and disease mapping, with an emphasis on
developing multivariate methods that measure and control informativeness. Her
work aims to produce reliable estimates that leverage model-based smoothing to
reduce instability without oversmoothing. Before Drexel, she earned an MS in
Statistics from Wake Forest University and completed a summer research internship
at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Dissertation committee: Harrison Quick,
PhD (Chair), Loni Tabb, PhD, Brisa Sanchez, PhD, Usama Bilal, MD, PhD, Aritra
Halder, PhD
Location: Nesbitt Hall room 751
and via Zoom link here
Contact Information
Nancy Colon-Anderson
nandersondrexel@gmail.com