Michael Harhay, PhD, MPH

Dr. Michael Harhay specializes in the statistical design, analysis, and interpretation of large randomized trials and cohort studies. He has been formally involved in >20 randomized trials to date in varying capacities and has particular research interests in many of the most challenging topics in the design and analysis of contemporary trials, including (composite) outcome measure development and interpretation, methods for missing outcome data, health-system embedded and pragmatic cluster-randomized designs, Bayesian and adaptive trial methods, and applications of causal inference methods to augment the interpretation of randomized (experimental) data. His review of Bayesian statistics for clinical research is available in The Lancet.

At Penn, he oversees a broad extramurally-funded research portfolio, including serving as the primary investigator of a PCORI cluster trial methodology award, and MPI of a NHLBI R01 developing Bayesian causal inference methods for ARDS trials, a NIA R01-funded hybrid type I pragmatic cluster trial to improve hospital palliative care delivery, and of Penn’s NHLBI/NIGMS ARDS, Pneumonia, and Sepsis (APS) Phenotyping Consortium site (U01-HL168419).

Dr. Harhay has authored more than 250 scientific publications and is involved in a wide range of international research activities, including randomized trial data safety and monitoring boards, societal and trial steering committees, research consortia, and serves as deputy editor of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and is an editor of the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Penn Appointments & Affiliations

• Co-Director, Research Data and Analysis Core, Penn’s AHRQ/PCORI-funded learning health system science program, Penn PORTAL

External Appointments & Affiliations

• Deputy Editor, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine
• Honorary Research Fellow, Institute of Clinical Trials and Methodology, University College London
• Steering Committee Member and Co-Chair of the Data Science Subcommittee, NHLBI/NIGMS ARDS, Pneumonia, and Sepsis (APS) Phenotyping Consortium
• Scientific Advisory Board, Intensive Care Platform Trial (INCEPT) 

Awards

• 2025 Jo Rae Wright Award for Outstanding Science, American Thoracic Society
• 2024 Marjorie A. Bowman New Investigator Award in Health Evaluation, University of Pennsylvania
• 2023 Early Career Epidemiologist Award, American College of Epidemiology
• 2021 Early Career Achievement Award, Assembly on Critical Care, American Thoracic Society