The department of biostatistics at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, making it one of the oldest biostatistics departments in the country.

Founded in 1940, it preceded many statistics departments and has been home to prominent scholars. The anniversary event convened Columbia University faculty, leaders in university administration, alumni, and current students to celebrate, honor, and reflect on the department’s achievements, leadership through the years, and significant potential for the future. Today, there are nearly 40 faculty members, five degree programs, and more than 100 graduate students. At the Mailman School, biostatistics also has one of the highest-rated departments for teaching.

Thomas A. Louis, professor of biostatistics at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an alumnus from Columbia University (statistics), delivered the keynote address on Big Data, titled “It’s Not All About Big Data, but Some of It Is.” Big Data is a topic that has captured the imagination of the public and many industrial sectors, and biostatistics/statistics is poised to lead in burgeoning areas like genomics, neuroimaging, and the analysis of electronic medical records. “We are experiencing an exciting moment for this department and for biostatistics as a field,” ativan online said chair DuBois Bowman. “From personalized medicine to population health, biostatistics provides a set of tools along with a unique framework for critical thinking to extract meaning from Big Data and help guide decisions.”

Several alumni gave presentations reflecting on both their successful careers and the growing opportunities for biostatisticians in academia, industry, and government. The department and the Mailman School’s collective commitment to increasing diversity was prominent. The department runs the Biostatistics and Epidemiology Summer Training (BEST) Diversity Program. Coupled with the Columbia Summer Institute for Training in Biostatistics (SIBS), sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the BEST Diversity Program provides undergraduates and select post-baccalaureate students with training and exposure to the biostatistical sciences. To date, the BEST Diversity Program has enrolled 95 students.

Linda P. Fried, dean of Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, stated “No school of public health can be great without a great biostatistics department. At Columbia, the department of biostatistics is truly essential to the wonderful successes that the Mailman School has achieved over the years.”

The day concluded with faculty research presentations, student poster presentations, and a distinguished alumni award presented to Petra Kaufmann, a graduate from 2002 who is director of the Division of Clinical Innovation with the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the NIH.