Congratulations to Xingruo (Summer) Zhang on being selected as one of five winners of ASA’s Health Policy Statistics Section (HPSS) student paper competition for 2022. Her paper entitled “Defining R-Squared Measures for Mixed-Effects Location Scale Models” addresses the issue of the lack of standardized effect size measures specifically for mixed-effects location scale (MELS) models. This kind of modeling facilitates understanding of both covariates’ influence and random subject effects on intraindividual variability of outcome. The proposed method, accompanied by an R function that allows users to input their data and parameter estimates and receive summary tables and visualization of our proposed measures, can help researchers interpret their results from MELS models.

As an award winner, Zhang will receive a monetary prize, certificate, and a ticket the HPSS speaker session with a lunch roundtable discussion. This award also provides Zhang with an excellent opportunity to present her research work and launch her professional career. Summer Zhang is a 2nd year Biostatistics student.