Malka Gorfine Orgad

Professor Malka Gorfine Orgad is a distinguished faculty member in the Department of Statistics and Operations Research at the School of Mathematical Sciences, Tel Aviv University. She has held the position of Professor since 2016, following her promotion from Associate Professor (2014-2016). Additionally, she maintains a long-standing affiliation as an Affiliate Investigator at the Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle since 2003.

Prof. Gorfine Orgad earned her MA (1994) and PhD (1999) in Statistics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the supervision of Professors Banjamin Yakir and David Zucker. Her academic journey includes previous appointments as Associate Professor at Harvard School of Public Health (2011-2012) and at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology (2010-2014), where she served as Senior Lecturer prior to that.

Her research focuses on survival data analysis, non-parametric statistics, biostatistics, and machine learning. Specifically, she investigates inference based on Survival Deep Learning, natural experiment methods for causal inference, and various challenges of causal inference with survival outcomes. She has developed several innovative methodologies for survival analysis, particularly in the areas of competing risks, semi-competing risks, and illness-death models.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a strong emphasis on practical applications of survival analysis methodology to real-world health problems, particularly related to cancer and infectious diseases like COVID-19. Her work frequently bridges theoretical statistical development with practical implementation through software packages, demonstrating her commitment to making advanced methods accessible to applied researchers.

• Associate Editor of JASA Applications and Case Studies (2022 - present)
• Associate Editor of EJS (2022 - present)
• Associate Editor of Scandinavian Journal of Statistics (2021 - 2024)
• Co-Editor of Biometrics (2017 - 2019)
• Associate Editor of Biometrics (2009 - 2016)
• Member of Editorial Board of Lifetime Data Analysis (2013 - 2016)

Prof. Gorfine Orgad actively mentors students at all levels, currently supervising one postdoc, two PhD students, and four MSc students, with numerous former students who have completed their degrees under her guidance. She serves as co-chair of the STRATOS TG8 (Survival Analysis Topic Group), which provides guidance on survival analysis methods for observational studies. She has also developed multiple software packages including PyMSM, PyDTS, frailty-LTRC, HHG, and others that implement her methodological contributions for the broader research community.