Edited by Songthip Ounpraseuth, Biometrics Section Publications Officer

The Biometrics Section would like to introduce the current members of the section’s executive committee:

J. Jack Lee will assume the past chair position. Lee is a professor of biostatistics within the department of biostatistics at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He also holds an adjunct professor position at Rice University and at The University of Texas School of Public Health. He earned his PhD in biostatistics from the University of California at Los Angeles. Lee’s research interests include design and analysis of clinical trials, survival analysis, longitudinal data analysis, statistical computation/graphics, statistical methods for determining drug interaction in combination studies, and cancer chemoprevention.

The section chair for 2012 is Dianne Finkelstein, who is the director of biostatistics at Mass General Hospital in Boston. She is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a professor of biostatistics in the department of biostatistics at Harvard School of Public Health. Finkelstein earned her PhD in biostatistics from the University of Michigan. Her areas of research interest include design and analysis of cancer and AIDS clinical trials and epidemiology studies, analysis of interval-censored data, survival analysis, and longitudinal data analysis. She is the principal investigator for the National Cancer Institute–supported Cancer Genetics Registry and has an interest in rare and inherited cancers.

Our chair-elect is Jianwen Cai, professor and associate chair of the department of biostatistics at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She earned her PhD in biostatistics from the University of Washington. Her research interests include multivariate survival analysis, cost-effective study designs, analysis of correlated responses, and longitudinal data analysis. Cai collaborates in the areas of cardiovascular disease, obesity, cancer, and dental research. She is the principal investigator for the coordinating center for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute–sponsored Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos.

Debashis Ghosh will continue serving as secretary/treasurer. Ghosh is a professor in the department of statistics at Penn State University with a joint appointment in the department of public health sciences at the Penn State College of Medicine. He earned his PhD in biostatistics from the University of Washington. Ghosh previously taught at the University of Michigan. His research interests include analysis of high-dimensional data, design and analysis of genomic studies, survival analysis, longitudinal data analysis, cancer biomarkers, machine learning, and observational data.

Timothy D. Johnson is the 2012 JSM Program Committee chair. He is an associate professor in the department of biostatistics at the University of Michigan. Johnson earned his PhD in biostatistics from the University of California at Los Angeles and was an adjunct assistant professor in the department of biomathematics there prior to moving to Michigan. His research interests include Bayesian methods, MCMC simulation, statistical image analysis, and point process modeling.

Daniel Scharfstein is the Biometrics Section program chair for the 2012 ENAR meeting program. He is a professor and director of the graduate program in the department of biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He received his pre- and post-doctoral training from the department of biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health. Scharfstein’s research focuses on how to draw inferences about treatment effects in the presence of selection bias. Specifically, he is interested in how to report results in randomized trials with informative missing or censored data and in observational studies with non-random treatment assignment.

Mousumi Banerjee continues as our Council of Sections representative. She is a research associate professor in the department of biostatistics at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She earned her PhD in statistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and previous appointments include assistant professor at the State University of New York in Buffalo and Wayne State University and associate professor at Wayne State University. She also held visiting faculty appointments at the University of Pretoria and University of Calcutta. Banerjee’s current research interests include tree-structured regression and ensemble methods for censored data, survival analysis with competing risks, and multilevel models in health services research applications. She is also a member of the UM Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Page Moore continues as the section’s representative to the Council of Sections. Moore earned her doctorate in statistics from Baylor University in 2006 and has been a faculty member in the department of biostatistics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences since then. Her main research interests are in multiple imputation techniques, longitudinal data analysis, computational statistics, and clinical trial design.

Scarlett L. Bellamy is our 2012–2014 representative to the Council of Sections. She has been a faculty member in the department of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania since completing her doctoral studies at Harvard in 2001. Scarlett’s research interests are focused on the methodological issues related to the design and analysis of cluster-randomized trials. She is particularly interested in applying this methodology to community-based research projects and projects addressing health disparities for a variety of clinical and behavioral health outcomes. Additionally, she participates in a number of diversity initiatives to increase representation of students and professionals from a variety of backgrounds in statistics.

Annie Qu will continue as the continuing education chair. Qu is a professor of statistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was a faculty member at Oregon State University from 1999 to 2008 and has been a visiting faculty in the biostatistics department at the University of Washington and MD Anderson Cancer Center. Qu earned her PhD in statistics at Penn State University. Her research interests include estimating equations, longitudinal data analysis, missing data, nonparametric models, and model selection.

Roslyn Stone continues serving as the chair of the Strategic Initiatives Committee. Stone is an associate professor in the department of biostatistics at the University of Pittsburgh. She earned her doctorate in biostatistics from the University of Washington. Her research interests are in generalized linear models, survival analysis, multi-level models, statistical methods for occupational and environmental epidemiology, guideline implementation, and cluster-randomized studies.

Songthip Ounpraseuth continues as the section’s publication officer through 2012. He earned his doctorate in statistics from Baylor University and has been a faculty member in the department of biostatistics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences since 2006. Ounpraseuth’s main research interests are in classification, error estimation, dimension reduction, and computational statistics.

Gerald Beck is the section’s webmaster. He is head of the clinical trials section in the department of quantitative health sciences at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. His primary interest is in the design, conduct, and analysis of clinical trials. He serves as principal investigator of data coordinating centers for multi-center clinical studies supported by the National Institutes of Health, including the Frequent Hemodialysis Network (FHN) Trials and the Hemodialysis Fistula Maturation (HFM) Study.

Volunteers Needed

Want to get more involved in JSM? Consider volunteering to chair a session. Chairing a session is an important responsibility and a great way to meet your colleagues. If you are interested, contact Johnson at tdjtdj@umich.edu.

Call for Proposals: Developing the Next Generation of Biostatisticians

The section invites applications for funding to support projects developing innovative outreach projects focused on enhancing awareness of biostatistics among quantitatively talented U.S. students. We particularly are interested in projects that will encourage students to pursue advanced training in biostatistics. We anticipate funding up to three projects, with total funding of up to $3,000 per project. All investigators are encouraged to apply.

A three-page application is due February 29 and should be in the following format: Title, Objectives, and Specific Aims; Background, Significance, and/or Rationale; Design and Methods; and Budget. The following types of expenditures are allowed: supplies, domestic travel when necessary to carry out the project, professional expertise (e.g., instructional designer or webmaster), and cost of computer time. The following types of expenditures are not allowed: secretarial/administrative personnel, tuition, foreign travel, and honoraria and travel expenses for visiting lecturers to the investigator’s home institution. A project period with a start date no earlier than March 15 and an end date no later than December 31 also should be specified.

Applications should be submitted electronically to the Strategic Initiatives Subcommittee chair, Roslyn Stone, at Roslyn@pitt.edu. All investigators will be expected to submit a brief report at the conclusion of the project to the subcommittee chair.