Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) Professor Margarita Moreno-Betancur has received the Moran Medal for her dedication to advancing data analysis in complex, long-term health research.

The medal, awarded by the Australian Academy of Science, recognises researchers and scientists across a range of fields in the mathematical sciences.

Professor Moreno-Betancur, who was honoured to receive the medal, said it would help raise the national profile of biostatistics, an area focused on the design, analysis and interpretation of health research, which uses data collected from humans.

“Modern health research relies heavily on large amounts of samples and detailed data collected over months, years or even decades,” she said.

Image: Professor Margarita Moreno-Betancur

“My work develops statistical methods for robust data analyses that help examine the effects of interventions, shedding light on the best ways to improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people. These methods help avoid bias and tackle incomplete data.”

Professor Moreno-Betancur’s advanced statistical (maths) expertise supports research projects like Generation Victoria (GenV), which maps the life course of more than 100,000 Victorians from birth to adulthood. GenV recently joined forces with The Kids Research Institute Australia to form Generation Australia to analyse additional health data.

“Data-rich initiatives like GenV aim to answer key health and wellbeing questions across an extended time frame but achieving this requires sound and more powerful data analysis,” Professor Moreno-Betancur said.

“Existing approaches for examining cause and effect are often unsuitable for large, complex datasets and can limit our ability to understand and interpret data correctly. This is one of the ongoing challenges my team are tackling.”

Read more about MCRI’s Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics (CEBU) research.