Causal Etiology of the Research of

This issue of Statistical Science draws its inspiration from the work of James M. Robins. Jon Wellner, the Editor at the time, asked the two of us to edit a special issue that would highlight the research topics studied by Robins and the breadth and depth of Robins’ contributions. Between the two of us, we have collaborated closely with Jamie for nearly 40 years. We agreed to edit this issue because we recognized that we were among the few in a position to relate the trajectory of his research career to date.1 Many readers may be unfamiliar with Robins’ singular career trajectory and in particular how his early practical experience motivated many of the inferential problems with which he was subsequently involved. Robins majored in mathematics at Harvard College, but then, in the spirit of the times, left college to pursue more activist social and political goals. Several years later, Robins enrolled in Medical School at Washington University in St. Louis, graduating in 1976. His M.D. degree remains his only degree, other than his high school diploma. Thomas S. Richardson is Professor and Chair, Department of Statistics, University of Washington, Box 354322, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA e-mail: thomasr@uw.edu. Andrea Rotnitzky is Professor, Department of Economics, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella & CONICET, Av. Figueroa Alcorta 7350, Sáenz Valiente 1010, Buenos Aires, Argentina e-mail: arotnitzky@utdt.edu. This is an electronic reprint of the original article published by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in Statistical Science, 2014, Vol. 29, No. 4, 459–484. This reprint differs from the original in pagination and typographic detail. Here, we restrict attention to Robins’ contributions to the research literature. Robins has also contributed by training and mentoring leading researchers in causal inference: among others, Elizabeth Halloran, Miguel Hernán, Eric Tchetgen Tchetgen and Tyler VanderWeele worked with him as graduate students. Both of the editors of this Special Issue were greatly influenced by Robins’ as a graduate student and postdoc and have been fortunate to have subsequently collaborated with him over many years. After graduating, he interned in medicine at Harlem Hospital in New York. After completing the internship, Robins spent a year working as a primary care physician in a community clinic in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. During that year, he helped organize a vertical Service Employees International Union affiliate that included all salaried personnel, from maintenance to physicians, working at the health center. In retaliation, he was dismissed by the director of the clinic and found that he was somewhat unwelcome at the other Boston community clinics. Unable to find a job and with his unemployment insurance running out, he surprisingly was able to obtain a prestigious residency in Internal Medicine at Yale University, a testament, he says with some irony, to the enduring strength of one’s Ivy League connections. At Yale, Robins and his college friend Mark Cullen, now head of General Medicine at Stanford Medical School, founded an occupational health clinic, with the goal of working with trade unions in promoting occupational health and safety. When testifying in workers’ compensation cases, Robins was regularly asked whether it was “more probable than not that a worker’s death or illness was caused by exposure to chemicals in the workplace. ” Robins’ lifelong interest in causal inference began with his need to provide an answer. As the relevant scientific papers consisted of epidemiologic studies and biostatistical analyses, Robins enrolled in biostatistics and epidemiology classes at Yale. He was dismayed to learn that the one question he needed to answer was the one question excluded from formal discussion