Laetitia de Abreu Nunes

Profile

I am currently a PhD student on the Health Data in Practice PhD programme, funded by the Wellcome Trust, and part of the Pragmatic Clinical Trials Unit at QMUL.

I previously completed a bachelor's degree in mathematics at the University of Geneva and a master's degree in pure mathematics at the University of Cambridge, before transitioning to health data science, where I am able to combine my enthusiasm for statistical & computational methods with meaningful applications that contribute to improving population health.

As part of the HDiP programme, I completed the Health Data in Practice MRes at Queen Mary in August 2022 and started my PhD in October 2022, supervised by Dr Rachel Phillips, Prof Richard Hooper and Dr Patricia McGettigan.

I am interested in methodological research, particularly trials methodology, and my PhD project aims to improve the presentation and analysis of harm outcomes in randomised controlled trials (RCTs).  Data from RCTs can be used to detect signals indicating that an adverse event (defined by the European Medicines Agency as any "untoward medical occurrence after exposure to a medicine, which is not necessarily caused by that medicine") might potentially be an adverse reaction (meaning that there is a reasonable possibility that the event is caused by the intervention). Many methods have been developed to tackle this complex task, in particular by using a hierarchical structure or grouping system for the adverse events, but they have not been adopted into practice. I will aim to appraise and compare some of these methods, as well as to develop guidance and tools to enable a change in current practices.

Additionally, I am very invested in science communication, open science & open-source, and improving research culture.

Research