Ivana Malenica

Ivana Malenica, PhD, is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health). Previously, she was a Wojcicki-Troper Data Science Fellow at the Harvard Data Science Initiative and a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Statistics at Harvard University. She earned her Ph.D. in Biostatistics from UC Berkeley in 2022.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Biostatistics, University of California, Berkeley (2022)
• B.S. in Mathematics, Arizona State University (2013)

Research Interests:

Dr. Malenica’s methodological research lies at the intersection of causal inference, non- and semi-parametric statistics, efficiency theory, and machine learning. She focuses on challenges in longitudinal and structured dependent data, including adaptive sequential experiments, online learning, reinforcement learning, and applications in personalized and public health.

Scientific Awards & Fellowships:

• Harvard Data Science Initiative (HDSI) Fellowship, Harvard University (2022)
• Berkeley Wellness Letter Fellowship, UC Berkeley (2020)
• Wellness Scholarship in Honor of Chin Long Chiang, UC Berkeley (2019)
• Moore-Sloan Data Science Fellowship, Berkeley Institute for Data Science (2018)

Teaching & Courses:

In Fall 2025, Dr. Malenica will teach BIOS 760: Advanced Probability and Statistical Inference I at UNC Chapel Hill.

Open-Source Software & Leadership:

She is an active contributor to the tlverse ecosystem, leading development of R packages such as medltmle (longitudinal mediation analysis), sl3 (super-learning pipelines), origami (cross-validation engine), and tmle3mopttx (optimal individualized treatment estimation).