Bayesian Survival, Longitudinal, and Joint Models with INLA

Denis Rustand is a research scientist in biostatistics at the Bordeaux Population Health Research Center, National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm U1219), Bordeaux, France. He earned his Ph.D. in Public Health and Biostatistics from the University of Bordeaux, where his doctoral research focused on the development of joint models for semicontinuous biomarkers and survival outcomes in oncology. Following his Ph.D., he was a postdoctoral research fellow in the BAYESCOMP group at KAUST under the supervision of Professor Havard Rue. It was during this time that he enhanced his expertise in biostatistical theory with high-performance Bayesian computation, leading to the creation of the INLAjoint R package, the primary software tool used in this book along with R-INLA. This book is a direct extension of that work, providing the theoretical background and practical guidance for the models implemented. His research focuses on developing fast and flexible Bayesian methods for the joint modeling of complex, multivariate longitudinal and survival data, with direct applications in clinical trials and epidemiology.

Janet van Niekerk is an Associate Professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and was a research scientist in the BAYESCOMP research group at KAUST. She received her Ph.D. in Mathematical Statistics from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Her research is centered on the development of efficient Bayesian methods and their practical implementation, with a particular focus on complex survival analysis and statistics for medical applications. As a key member of the INLA development team, she has made significant contributions to the INLA methodology itself, authoring seminal papers on fundamental improvements that enhance the algorithm's speed, stability, and scalability. Her work ensures that the INLA framework continues to evolve to meet the demands of modern, data-rich statistical modeling.

Elias Teixeira Krainski is a research scientist in the BAYESCOMP group at KAUST. He earned his Ph.D. in Mathematical Sciences from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology under the supervision of Professor Havard Rue. His research focuses on the application and development of structured Bayesian models, with a specialization in spatial and spatio-temporal statistics. He is the main author of the book Advanced Spatial Modeling with Stochastic Partial Differential Equations Using R and INLA (Krainski et al. (2018)) and a developer of several R packages that facilitate the use of INLA for complex models. His expertise provides the foundation for the advanced spatial models covered in this book.

Havard Rue is Professor of Statistics at KAUST, where he leads the BAYESCOMP research group. He received his Ph.D. from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Professor Rue is an internationally renowned authority in Bayesian computational statistics and is the main developer of the Integrated Nested Laplace Approximations methodology and the associated R-INLA package. His work has revolutionized the practice of applied Bayesian statistics by providing a fast, deterministic alternative to MCMC for the vast class of latent Gaussian models. He is an elected member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Royal Norwegian Society of Science and Letters, the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences and the International Statistical Institute. In 2021, he was awarded the Guy Medal in Silver by the Royal Statistical Society in recognition of his groundbreaking contributions to the field.