Gerarda Darlington

Professor, Statistics
Email: 
gdarling@uoguelph.ca
Phone number: 
519-824-4120 x53292
Office: 
MacNaughton 514
Summary: 

 

Available positions for grads/undergrads/postdoctoral fellows: 

Inquire by email

 

I am a member of the Biomathematics and Biostatistics Working Group.

My former students have employment in:

  • Kidney, dialysis and transplantation research
  • HIV/AIDS research
  • Pharmaceutical industry
  • Toxicology consulting
  • Government health research
  • Hospital research groups
  • College teaching

Research themes:

My research focuses on the development of statistical methods for the design and analysis of studies involving time-to-event and clustered outcomes. My statistics research is motivated by participation in collaborative work such as the Guelph Family Health Study. I am also involved in collaborative research projects with faculty in the University of Guelph’s College of Social and Applied Human Health as well as the College of Biological Sciences. Key areas of focus include:

  1. Time-to-event outcomes. An event time refers to the time at which an outcome event takes place, such as time to death. Darlington and her colleagues have explored statistical models to better understand the influence of explanatory variables on outcome events, particularly with a focus on correlated outcomes resulting from clustered data (e.g., family studies).
  2. Research in conjunction with the Guelph Family Health Study. Darlington applies her statistical knowledge toward epidemiologic and genetic epidemiologic studies. She has recently been involved in research related to children’s diet and nutrition, including home-based obesity prevention.

Media Coverage:

Interim dean appointment:

Awards and Honours:

Child health and behaviour:

 

  • Statistical methods for correlated observations
  • Methods for epidemiologic studies
  • Design and analysis of cluster randomized trials

Professional Statistician (P.Stat.) designation, obtained October 2013. This is a program of accreditation, offered by the Statistical Society of Canada.

PhD

  • Methods for modelling progression-free survival and overall survival (in progress).
  • Survival analysis with internal categorical time-varying covariates (2017).
  • Ties between event times and covariate change times in Cox models (2014).

MSc

  • Comparison of interval estimation methods for standardized event ratios (in progress).
  • Joint modelling of progression free survival and overall survival (2017).
  • Interval estimation for standardized event ratios (2017).
  • Regression splines for longitudinal data (2016).
  • Ordinal logistic regression with survey weights (2016).
  • Sensitivity analysis for incremental cost-effectiveness ratio estimation (2015).
  • Monte Carlo methods for Bayesian analysis of correlated data (2014).
  • Models for grouped survival data (2014).
  • Interval estimation for the intra-class correlation coefficient (2014).
  • Comparison of survival analysis models for correlated events (2013).
  • Use of logistic regression versus exact logistic regression (2012).
  • Cluster randomized trials with binary pretest and post-test outcomes (2012).

B.Sc. Statistics (University of Guelph).

M.Sc. Statistics (University of Guelph).

Ph.D. Statistics (University of Waterloo).

Krystia, O., Ambrose, T., Darlington, G.,. Ma, D.W.L., Buchholz, A.C., Haines, J., on behalf of the Guelph Family Health Study. A pilot randomized childhood obesity-prevention intervention has favourable long-term effects on parental body composition: Guelph Family Health Study. Submitted to International Journal of Obesity, May, 2018.

Stephenson, M., Darlington, G., Schenkel, F., Squires, J., Ali, A. DSRIG: Incorporating graphical structure in the regularized modeling of SNP data. Submitted to Journal of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, April, 2018.

Chamoun, E., Liu, A.A.S., Duizer, L.M., Darlington, G., Duncan, A.M., Haines, J., Ma, D.W.L. Taste sensitivity and taste preference measures are correlated in healthy young adults. Submitted to Chemical Senses, March, 2018.

Chleilat, F., Chamoun, E., Mutch, D.M., Duncan, A.M., Darlington, G., Haines, J., Ma, D.W.L. A polymorphism in the beta subunit of the epithelial sodium channel gene is associated with sodium intake and blood pressure in preschool-aged children in the pilot of the Guelph Family Health Study. Submitted to Nutrition Journal, March 2018.

Stephenson, M., Ali, A., Darlington, G. Doubly sparse regression incorporating graphical structure among predictors. Submitted to Canadian Journal of Statistics, September 2017.

Haines, J., Douglas, S., Mirotta, J.A., O’Kane, C., Breau, R., Walton, K., Krystia, O., Chamoun, E., Annis, A., Darlington, G.A., Buchholz, A.C., Duncan, A.M., Vallis, L.A., Spriet, L.L., Mutch, D.M., Brauer, P., Allen-Vercoe, E., Taveras, E.M., Ma, D.W.L. on behalf of the Guelph Family Health Study. (2018). Guelph Family Health Study: Pilot study of a home-based obesity prevention intervention. Canadian Journal of Public Health, In press.

Chamoun, E., Hutchinson, J.M., Krystia, O., Mirotta, J.A., Mutch, D.M., Buchholz, A.C., Duncan, A.M., Darlington, G., Haines, J., Ma, D.W.L., Guelph Family Health Study. (2018). Single nucleotide polymorphisms in taste receptor genes are associated with snacking patterns of preschool-aged children in the Guelph Family Health Study: A pilot study. Nutrients 10:153: 1-11.

Krystia, O., Darlington, G., Haines, J., Ma, D., Buchholz, A., Guelph Family Health Study. (2018). Parental overweight is associated with less encouragement of child dietary balance and variety and involvement in meal planning and preparation. FACETS 3, 155-163.

Xin, X., Horrocks, J., Darlington, G.A. (2018). Weighting methods for ties between event times and covariate change times. Communications in Statistics - Simulation and Computation 47, 1-15.

Braschel, M.C., Darlington, G.A., Klar, N. (2017). A study of grouped failure time data and the misapplication of recurrent event modeling. Communications in Statistics - Simulation and Computation 46, 5313-5322.

Keown-Stoneman, C., Horrocks, J., Darlington, G. (2017). Exponential decay for binary time-varying covariates in Cox models. Statistics in Medicine 37, 776-788.

Keown-Stoneman, C., Horrocks, J., Darlington, G. (2017). Weibull multi-state models with misclassification. Communications in Statistics - Simulation and Computation, In press.

MacRae, L.M., Darlington, G., Haines, J., Ma, D.W.L., Guelph Family Health Study. (2017). Examination of associations between chaos in the home environment, serum cortisol level, and dietary fat intake among parents of preschool-age children. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 42, 788-791.

Mirotta, J.A., Darlington, G., Haines, J., Ma, D.W.L., Duncan, A.M., Guelph Family Health Study. (2017). Guelph Family Health Study’s home-based obesity prevention intervention increases fibre and fruit intake in preschool-aged children. Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research, Accepted.

Stephenson, M., Ali, R.A., Darlington, G.A. (2017). Simple approach to analyzing clustered longitudinal data. Communications in Statistics - Simulation and Computation 46, 3553-3562.

Watterworth, J.C., Mackay, J.M., Buchholz, A.C., Darlington, G., Randall Simpson, J.A., Ma, D.W.L., Haines, J., Guelph Family Health Study. (2017). Food parenting practices and their association with child nutrition risk status: comparing mothers and fathers. Applied Physiology, Metabolism, and Nutrition 42, 667-671.

Braschel, M.C., Svec, I., Darlington, G.A., Donner, A. (2016). A comparison of confidence interval methods for the intraclass correlation coefficient in community-based cluster randomization trials with a binary outcome. Clinical Trials 13 180-187.

Filion, A.J., Darlington, G., Chaput, J.P., Ybarra, M., Haines, J. (2015). Examining the influence of a text message-based sleep and physical activity intervention among young adult smokers in the United States. BMC Public Health 15:671: 1-11.

Keown-Stoneman, C.D.G., Horrocks, J., Darlington, G.A., Goodday, S., Grof, P., Duffy A. (2015). Multi-state models for investigating possible stages leading to bipolar disorder. International Journal of Bipolar Disorders, 3:5: 1-8.

Walton, K., Filion, A.J., Gross, D., Morrongiello, B., Darlington, G., Randall Simpson, J., Hou, S., Haines, J. (2015). Parents and Tots Together: Pilot randomized controlled trial of a family-based obesity prevention intervention in the Canadian context. Canadian Journal of Public Health 106(8), e555-562.

Walton, K., Randall Simpson, J., Darlington, G., Haines, J. (2014). Parenting stress:  a cross-sectional analysis of associations with childhood obesity, physical activity, and TV viewing. BMC Pediatrics, 14:244: 1-7.

Darlington, G.A., Dixon, S.N. (2013). Event-weighted proportional hazards modelling for recurrent gap time data. Statistics in Medicine 32, 124-130.

Xin, X., Horrocks, J., Darlington, G.A. (2013). Ties between event times and jump times in the Cox model. Statistics in Medicine 32, 2374-2389.

Dixon, S.N., Darlington, G.A., Edge, V. (2012). Applying a marginalized frailty model to competing risks. Journal of Applied Statistics 39, 435-443.

2017    John Bell Award for outstanding contributions to university education at the University of Guelph
2017    YMCA-YWCA Woman of Distinction Honouree; Recognition for professional achievement and mentoring women in STEM fields
2013    Accreditation as Professional Statistician by the Statistical Society of Canada
2010    MITACS Award for Excellence in Mentorship
2007    Presidential Distinguished Professor Award (for research, teaching and service)
2004    University of Guelph Faculty Association Distinguished Professor Award for the College of Physical and Engineering Science
2001    Central Student Association Teaching Excellence Award