Understanding Instrumental and Collider Variables in Causal Inference

Today we close out our 2021 ICML series joined by Lina Montoya, a postdoctoral researcher at UNC Chapel Hill. 

In our conversation with Lina, who was an invited speaker at the Neglected Assumptions in Causal Inference Workshop, we explored her work applying Optimal Dynamic Treatment (ODT) to understand which kinds of individuals respond best to specific interventions in the US criminal justice system. We discuss the concept of neglected assumptions and how it connects to ODT rule estimation, as well as a breakdown of the causal roadmap, coined by researchers at UC Berkeley. 

Finally, Lina talks us through the roadmap while applying the ODT rule problem, how she’s applied a “superlearner” algorithm to this problem, how it was trained, and what the future of this research looks like.

The complete show notes for this episode can be found at twimlai.com/go/506.