Online Causal Inference Seminar

A regular international causal inference seminar. Sign up to our mailing list to receive announcements.

All seminars are on Tuesdays at 8:30 am PT / 11:30 am ET / 3:30 pm London time / 11:30 pm Beijing time. Please note: Due to recent daylight-saving time changes, the meeting time in your local time zone may have shifted.

Zoom link and other details are provided below. Past talks are available here. Recordings of past webinars are available on our YouTube channel (subscribe to get notified!).

Upcoming Seminars

• Tuesday, Mar 17, 2026:  OCIS+INI joint webinar
  - Time: This event starts at 8:30 am PT / 11:30 am ET / 3:30 pm London time / 11:30 pm Beijing time
  - Speaker: Rajarshi Mukherjee  (Harvard)  & Sean McGrath (Yale)
  - Zoom details: Zoom link (webinar ID: 968 8371 7451, password: 414559)
  - Title: Nuisance Parameter Tuning for Estimating Doubly Robust Functionals
  - Abstract: The purpose is to discuss the issue of nuisance parameter tuning for estimating quantities in observational studies, such as the average treatment effect and measures of conditional dependence. Typical methods for estimating such quantities of interest rely on estimating nuisance functions often through the lens of nonparametric and/or high-dimensional machine learning methods. Whereas many popular ideas pertain to tuning these nuisance function estimators from a prediction perspective and subsequently performing downstream bias correction for valid inference of low dimensional summaries of interest in the observational studies, cases are explored to show that there exists a delicate interplay between nuisance function estimation strategies, type of estimators that uses these nuisance functions in its pipeline for estimating the final object of interest, and sample splitting strategies that are now popular to allow flexible nuisance function estimators without jeopardizing the standard errors of estimators of the downstream objects of interest. The above is explored through the lens of specific functionals that arise in the context of causal inference, and both are studied in nonparametric and high-dimensional regimes.

• Tuesday, Mar 24, 2026: Young Researchers' Seminar
  - Time: This event starts at 8:30 am PT/ 11:30 am ET/ 3:30 pm London time/ 11:30 pm Beijing time
  - Zoom details: Zoom link (webinar ID: 968 8371 7451, password: 414559)
  Speaker 1: William Bekerman (University of Pennsylvania)
  - Title: TBA
  - Abstract: TBA
  Speaker 2: Giacomo Opocher (University of Bologna)
  - Title: TBA
  - Abstract: TBA

• Tuesday, Mar 31, 2026:  OCIS+INI joint webinar (Details TBA)

• Tuesday, Apr 07, 2026:
  - Speaker: Thomas Icard (Stanford University)
  - Zoom details: Zoom link (webinar ID: 968 8371 7451, password: 414559)  
  - Title: Causal Inference as a Logical Problem
  - Abstract: The goal of this talk will be to show how problems of causal inference can be usefully and precisely understood as logical problems. Adapting tools and concepts from mathematical and computational logic affords new perspectives, raises new questions, and sheds light on some practical and theoretical issues in causal inference. We illustrate with several examples, including some ways in which a logical lens can help clarify the empirical status of assumptions sufficient to bridge gaps between limited data and substantive causal conclusions.
  - Discussant: Jiji Zhang (Chinese University of Hong Kong) 

• Tuesday, Apr 14, 2026:
  - Speaker: Matteo Bonvini (Rutgers University)
  - Details: TBA

• Tuesday, Apr 21, 2026:  OCIS+INI joint webinar (Details TBA)

• Tuesday, Apr 28, 2026:  OCIS+INI joint webinar (Details TBA)

• Tuesday, May 05, 2026:
  - Speaker: Martin Tingley (Microsoft)
  - Details: TBA

• Tuesday, May 12, 2026:  OCIS+INI joint webinar (Details TBA)

• Tuesday, May 19, 2026:
  - Speaker: Naoki Egami (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
  - Details: TBA

• Tuesday, May 26, 2026:  OCIS+INI joint webinar (Details TBA)

• Tuesday, June 02, 2026:
  - Speaker: Suhas Vijaykumar (U.C. San Diego)
  - Details: TBA

• Tuesday, June 09, 2026: OCIS+INI joint webinar
  - Speaker: Yixin Wang (University of Michigan)
  - Details: TBA

• Tuesday, June 16, 2026:  OCIS+INI joint webinar (Details TBA)

• Tuesday, June 23, 2026:
  - Speaker: Falco Bargagli Stoffi (University of California, Los Angeles)
  - Zoom details: Zoom link (webinar ID: 968 8371 7451, password: 414559)  
  - Title: Stable Discovery of Treatment Effect Modifiers
  - Abstract: Identifying covariates that modify treatment effects is a critical problem in causal inference. Yet existing data-adaptive methods lack rigorous error control, risking spurious findings that fail to replicate. We propose a method combining pseudo-outcomes with a novel cross-fitted stability selection algorithm to achieve finite-sample false discovery control for effect modifiers. We prove that selection probabilities are asymptotically unbiased, converging to oracle probabilities at parametric rate under doubly robust pseudo-outcome estimation. False discovery is controlled at the nominal level while maintaining power to detect genuine heterogeneity. We demonstrate the method on simulated and real-world data.

Recordings of our past webinars are available on YouTube. Follow us on YouTube to stay notified!

Mailing List

To stay up-to-date about upcoming presentations and receive Zoom invitations please join our mailing list. You will receive an email to confirm your subscription. If you are already subscribed to our mailing list and would like to unsubscribe, you may unsubcribe here.

Suggest a speaker

If there is anyone you would like to hear at the Online Causal Inference Seminar, you may let us know here.

Opportunities in Causal Inference

Please check out our opportunities in causal inference page for conferences, workshops, and job listings! If you would like us to list an opportunity, please email us at onlinecausalinferenceseminar@gmail.com.

Youtube channel

Recordings of our past webinars are available on YouTube. Follow us on YouTube to stay notified!

Instructions for Attendees

You can join the webinar by clicking the link on the webpage. If you signed up to the mailing list, you will receive an email with the link before the webinar begins. On Tuesday, you should join the seminar shortly before the start time 8:30 am PT.

Please participate during the seminar!

Due to high demand, we will host the seminar as a Zoom webinar. As an attendee, you will not be able to unmute yourself. If you have questions about the content of the talk, please submit the questions using the Zoom Q&A feature. Time permitting, and depending on the volume of questions, the moderator will either ask your question for you or confirm with you to ask the question yourself and unmute you at a suitable time. In some meetings, the collaborators of the speaker will be online to address your questions in Q&A. Note that Q&A will be moderated by us so you will only be able to see some of the questions of the other attendees. If you want to send messages to the moderators during the seminar, please use the Zoom chat feature. 

Zoom instructions

If you have not used Zoom before, we highly recommend downloading and installing the Zoom client before the meeting. Additional instructions on how to use Zoom during a webinar can be found here. Note that for the online causal inference seminar, we do not require registration in advance so you will be able to join by simply clicking the link on this webpage or in the email.

If you have further questions, please drop us an email at onlinecausalinferenceseminar@gmail.com