COMPASS hosts students for Summer Scholarships, Honours and Masters dissertations, and PhD theses. Our expertise has enabled students to undertake projects using census and administrative health data, survey data from the International Social Survey Programme, and more recently the broad range of data available in the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI).
PhD Candidates
Current
Alexia Searchfield (Paediatrics), supervised by Professor John Thompson and Professor Barry Milne. Educational outcomes for young adults born small for gestational age.
Ditta Mae Siena-De Guzman (Public Policy), supervised by Dr Stephanie D’Souza. Operationalising digital transformation in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) public sector: Factors and policy implications.
Francesca Anns (Psychology), supervised by Dr Stephanie D’Souza, Professor Barry Milne, and Professor Lynette Tippett. Long‑term mental health outcomes of elite rugby players.
Luna Zhao (Politics), supervised by Professor Jennifer Lees-Marshment and Dr Stephanie D’Souza. Targeting ethnic minority voters: How National and Labour use political marketing to target Chinese New Zealanders.
Marianna Pekar (Health Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington), supervised by Professor Colin Simpson (Victoria University of Wellington) and Professor Barry Milne. Detecting and mitigating bias in AI systems for healthcare decision support.
Mohammad Shahbaz (Liggins Institute), supervised by Professor Dame Jane Harding, Professor Barry Milne, and Associate Professor Greg Gamble. Quality of linked data to assess the long-term outcomes of a neonatal trial.
Paula Araya-Herrera (Psychology), supervised by Professor Karen Waldie and Dr Lisa Underwood. Beyond movement: The influence of gross motor skills on early autism development.
Sylvia Zhang (Psychology), supervised by Professor Karen Waldie and Dr Lisa Underwood. Trajectories of peer victimisation among New Zealand tamariki.
Tori Diamond (Statistics), supervised by Dr Matt Edwards, Professor Barry Milne, and Andrew Sporle. Novel methods for making Māori data relevant to local decision-making.
Completed
Dr Eileen Li, PhD (Statistics), completed 2025, supervised by Associate Professor Barry Milne, Dr Yong Wang, and Professor Thomas Lumley. Investigating linkage bias in the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) using census and education data.
Dr Alex Wang (Mathematics & Statistics, Victoria University of Wellington), completed 2024, supervised by Professor Colin Simpson and Associate Professor Barry Milne. Data‑Centric AI: Tabular data synthesis with deep generative models.
Dr Natalia Boven, PhD (Statistics), completed 2024, supervised by Dr Nichola Shackleton, Associate Professor Barry Milne, and Professor Thomas Lumley. Constructing measures of family socioeconomic position: Testing commonplace assumptions and alternative approaches.
Dr Liza Bolton, PhD (Statistics), completed 2023, supervised by Associate Professor Barry Milne and Professor Alan Lee. Life‑course predictors of mortality inequalities across ethnic groups in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Dr Nick Bowden, PhD (Health Sciences, University of Otago), completed 2023, supervised by Professor Barry Taylor, Dr Sheree Gibb, Dr Richard Audas, and Associate Professor Barry Milne. Autism/ takiwātanga in Aotearoa New Zealand: Medication prescribing, educational outcomes, and criminal justice system interactions: Investigations using linked whole population administrative data.
Dr Yun Joo So, PhD (Economics), completed 2023, supervised by Associate Professor Ryan Greenaway‑McGrevy and Associate Professor Barry Milne. Three essays on the geography of economic opportunity.
Dr Charon Lessing, PhD (Pharmacy), completed 2015, supervised by Professor Toni Ashton and Professor Peter Davis. Evaluating the impact of Pharmac’s reference pricing policy on choice and health status.
Dr Jo Broad, PhD (Community Health), completed 2015, supervised by Professor Toni Ashton and Professor Peter Davis. Estimating the accommodation and care needs of older New Zealanders in the later life-course.
Dr Tom Robinson, PhD (Population Health), completed 2015, supervised by Professor Peter Davis and Associate Professor Roger Marshall. Applying quasi-experimental methods to assess the impact of health service interventions in New Zealand.
Dr Babak Mahdavi Ardestani, PhD (Geography), completed 2013, supervised by (now) Professor David O’Sullivan and Professor Peter Davis. Using a hybrid model for investigating residential segregation: An empirical and simulation‑based study.
Dr Lyndon Walker, PhD (Statistics), completed 2010, supervised by Professor Alan Lee and Professor Peter Davis. Modelling inter‑ethnic partnerships in New Zealand 1981‑2006: A census-based approach.
Masters and Honours Students
Current
Chaya Ranasinghe (Public Policy), supervised by Dr Lisa Underwood. Young carers in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Eileen Kennedy (Public Policy), supervised by Dr Stephanie D’Souza. Māori mental health: New Zealand’s mental health framework and te tiriti.
Feifei (Chase) Wu (Data Science), supervised by Dr Lisa Underwood. Developing the R Shiny dashboard for visualising New Zealand census data on unpaid activities.
Isabel Avery (Public Policy), supervised by Dr Stephanie D’Souza. Evaluating the effectiveness of aviation training programmes in New Zealand: Addressing skill shortages.
Kayla van Tonder (Psychology), supervised by Dr Stephanie D’Souza. Mental health symptoms and service use in New Zealanders of Asian ethnicity.
Ruby Pankhurst (Statistics), supervised by Dr Matt Edwards and Professor Barry Milne. Disclosure risk processes for Pacific populations.
Completed
Chenchen Ning, MSc (Data Science), completed 2024, supervised by Associate Professor Barry Milne. Achieving health equity in Aotearoa: An ethnicity-focused analysis of patient experience data at Te Toka Tumai, Auckland.
Jiaqi Yang, MSc (Data Science), completed 2024, supervised by Associate Professor Barry Milne and Professor James Curran. Web application for tracking performance of high school students.
Pengju Zheng, MSc (Data Science), completed 2023, supervised by Associate Professor Barry Milne. Evaluating healthcare equity through inpatient incidents: A case study of Te Toka Tumai, Auckland.
Anika Terry, MSc (Statistics), completed 2022, supervised by Associate Professor Barry Milne and Associate Professor Alice Mills. “Going Straight Home?” Project searching for the effect of stable housing on recidivism by ex-prisoners.
Eileen Li, MSc, (Statistics), completed 2020, supervised by Associate Professor Barry Milne. Investigating associations between delivery mode and later educational outcomes.
Shu Wang, BSc Honours (Statistics), completed 2020, supervised by Dr Stephanie D’Souza and Dr Nichola Shackleton. Psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the UCLA three-item loneliness scale.
Shaun Roberts, MSc (Statistics), completed 2019, supervised by Dr Barry Milne. Re-identification risk of online data repositories.
Simon Swinton, BSc Honours (Statistics), completed 2019, supervised by Dr Barry Milne. Exploring the academic outcomes of migrant students in Aotearoa.
Lucas Chen, BSc Honours (Statistics), completed 2018, supervised by Associate Professor Daniel Exeter, Dr Nichola Shackleton, Dr Jinfeng Zhao, and Dr Barry Milne. Who lives in deprived places? The extent of mismatch between personal socioeconomic position and area-level measures of deprivation.
Natalia Boven, MPP (Public Policy), completed 2018, supervised by Dr Nichola Shackleton, Dr Barry Milne, and Professor Thomas Lumley. Exploring different methods of measuring ethnicity for estimating ethnic inequalities in health, and the policy implications.
Oliver Mills, BSc Honours (Statistics), completed 2018, supervised by Dr Nichola Shackleton and Associate Professor Daniel Exeter. Exploring the scale effect: The impact scale has on homogeneity and suppression.
Olivia Healey, MPH (Public Health), completed 2018, supervised by Associate Professor Daniel Exeter and Dr Nichola Shackleton. The forgotten generation: Creating a census-based measure of socioeconomic position (SEP) for the ≥65 population.
Shaan Badenhorst, BCom Honours (Economics), completed 2018, supervised by Associate Professor Asha Sundaram and Dr Barry Milne. Success at the cost of pimples? An empirical study of the effects of adolescent acne on education outcomes in New Zealand.
Justin Gunter, MSc (Statistics), completed 2016, supervised by Dr Barry Milne and Professor Alan Lee. The effect of urban living on mortality risk in New Zealand.
Fui Swen Kuh, BSc Honours (Statistics), completed 2015, supervised by Dr Barry Milne and Professor Alan Lee. Socioeconomic position and mortality risks: A sibling approach.
Justin Gunter, BSc Honours (Statistics), completed 2015, supervised by Dr Barry Milne and Professor Alan Lee. The effect of longitudinal unemployment on mortality risk in New Zealand.
Shahirah Ayob, BSc Honours (Statistics), completed 2015, supervised by Professor Alastair Scott and Roy Lay‑Yee. The relationship between infant mortality and income inequality in New Zealand and other OECD countries, 1960s‑2000s.
Liza Bolton, BSc Honours (Statistics), completed 2014, supervised by Dr Barry Milne and Professor Alan Lee. Factors explaining the low income return for education among Asian New Zealanders.
Lorraine Lee, BCom Honours (Economics), completed 2014, supervised by Dr Erwann Sbai and Dr Barry Milne. Understanding the childhood trajectory and its effects and consequences
Mughda Manda, BSc Honours (Statistics), completed 2013, supervised by Dr Barry Milne and Professor Alan Lee. Creating synthetic data sets using multiple imputation and stochastically-assigned synthetic individuals.
Stephanie Farrow, MSc (Statistics), completed 2013, supervised by Professor Alastair Scott and Professor Peter Davis. The New Zealand Election Study: A study in nonsampling error.
Emma Gullery, MSc (Statistics), completed 2012, supervised by Professor Alastair Scott, Professor Peter Davis, and Dr Barry Milne. Methods of analysing length of stay.
Furong (Lindy) Guo, MSc (Statistics), completed 2012, supervised by Professor Alan Lee and Professor Peter Davis. Data management for combining data sets.
Hind Behayaa, MSc (Statistics), completed 2012, supervised by Professor Alastair Scott and Roy Lay‑Yee. Does follow-up to outpatient clinics prevent adverse patient outcomes? The cases of bowel resection and hip replacement procedures.
Samuel Passmore, BSc Honours (Statistics), completed 2012, supervised by Professor Thomas Lumley and Dr Barry Milne. BART vs. logistic regression: Propensity score estimation.
Chia Wern (Carmen) Lim, MSc (Statistics), completed 2011, supervised by Professor Alastair Scott and Dr Barry Milne. Applying propensity scores to compare hospital performance.
Eric Mar, MSc (Statistics), completed 2011, supervised by Professor Alan Lee and Roy Lay‑Yee. Hospital restructuring: Was it harming us?
Jessica Maclean, BSc Honours (Statistics), completed 2011, supervised by Professor Alastair Scott and (now) Professor Barry Milne. Investigating outpatient non-attendance in the New Zealand public health system.
Ui Young (Brian) Byun, MSc (Statistics), completed 2011, supervised by Professor Alan Lee and Professor Peter Davis. Occupation-based socioeconomic scores: A path analysis approach.
Chia Wern (Carmen) Lim, BSc Honours (Statistics), completed 2010, supervised by Professor Alastair Scott and Professor Peter Davis. Tracking changes in primary medical care: Waikato 1979‑2002.
Karl Parker, MSc (Statistics), completed 2010, supervised by Professor Peter Davis and Professor Alastair Scott. Underpinning transparency in research: Establishing a template for a research repository with real-world examples.
Sanat Pradhan, MSc (Statistics), completed 2009, supervised by Professor Alastair Scott and Professor Peter Davis. Predicting clinical activity in New Zealand general practice.