统计与数据科学系系列学术报告之五百零九期

时间：2026年5月7日（星期四）16:00-17:00

主持人：复旦大学管理学院统计与数据科学系沈娟副教授

地点：史带楼502室

报告人：Prof. Emma Jingfei Zhang （张菁菲）Emory University

题目：Designing Randomized Experiments under Network Interference

摘要：Network interference occurs when a unit’s outcome depends not only on its own treatment but also on the treatments received by connected units in the network. Experimental designs and analysis methods that ignore such interference can yield biased estimators of causal effects. In this talk, we develop a new experimental design for estimating the global treatment effect and spillover effect under a model-based framework and ego-cluster randomization. Under this design, the network is partitioned into a collection of ego-clusters, each consisting of a focal unit (the ego) and its network neighbors (the alters), with randomization conducted at the cluster level. We propose model-based estimators for the global treatment effect and spillover effect and establish their consistency and asymptotic normality, with asymptotic variances determined by the ego-cluster structure. Building on these theoretical results, we introduce an ego-clustering algorithm that sequentially selects egos and assigns alters to minimize asymptotic variances. Simulation studies and two empirical applications demonstrate that the proposed procedure yields accurate inference and efficiency improvements over existing network experimental designs.

个人简介：Dr. Emma Jingfei Zhang is Goizueta Foundation Chair Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management at the Goizueta Business School of Emory University. Dr. Zhang’s research focuses on analyzing large networks, tensors and point processes, with applications in business, public health and biomedical research. She is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. She is currently serving as associate editors at Journal of the American Statistical Association, Annals of Applied Statistics, Statistica Sinica, and Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics.