Jane Monaco has directed the BSPH in biostatistics program at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 2006. She is a clinical associate professor with interests in statistics education and survival analysis.

In the early 1970s, the faculty in the department of biostatistics at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) considered the following questions: Why should biostatistics graduate students have all the fun? Why not offer a biostatistics degree to undergraduates?

BSPH biostatistics majors gather at the home of Jane Monaco, director of undergraduate studies, in May 2019.

Biostatistics was a growing, rewarding field at the time, but largely limited to students in graduate training. Opening the field to undergraduate students was considered a radical idea. A pool of undergraduates at UNC-CH were the ideal pioneers for training in biostatistics at the undergraduate level. Thus, the BSPH in biostatistics at UNC-CH was born.

Currently, the UNC-CH Biostatistics Department has more than 60 undergraduates (primarily juniors and seniors) pursuing the BSPH degree. It has trained more than 370 undergraduate students under two directors: Craig Turnbull from inception until 2006 and Jane Monaco, who continues to serve in this capacity.

Jenna Tan, a May 2020 BSPH graduate who is entering the MS program at UNC-CH shared, “I am glad I majored in biostatistics because it is the intersection of many of my interests, such as math, health, and programming and, most importantly, it is an important field in promoting public health and improving the welfare of our society! I have truly been challenged to think critically, improve my problem-solving skills, and learn how to collaborate with people both in my discipline and outside of it.”

Matt Gilleskie is a data analyst at the UNC Center for Aids Research Clinical Core and a BSPH in biostatistics 2019 graduate.

The program is the largest undergraduate degree in biostatistics in the country, graduating 20 or more students per class in recent years. Almost half of the students in the US who graduated with a degree in biostatistics (from 2003–2018) were UNC-CH biostatistics graduates.

Curriculum and Admission

While the curriculum has been periodically revised and updated, several characteristics have remained constant: a rigorous mathematics component; biostatistics courses primarily taught at the master’s level; statistical programming coursework; and a public health component.

Students usually apply for the major in their sophomore year and matriculate into the program as a junior. Prerequisite coursework before entering the major includes three semesters of calculus, introductory computer science, and one biology course. The average GPA for recently admitted students is 3.8/4.0. A BSPH graduate in biostatistics has mastered topics in applied and theoretical biostatistics, study design, survey sampling, statistical programming, calculus, linear algebra, discrete math, and advanced mathematics, as well as public health foundations, systems, and solutions.

Housed in the Gillings School of Global Public Health, the degree requires coursework in public health and epidemiology, which differentiates the curriculum from a traditional statistics undergraduate degree.

Previous Graduates

The first BSPH degree in biostatistics was awarded in 1978 to Maura Stokes, who proceeded to earn her MSPH and DrPH in the department. Among her many roles in the statistical community, she served as the senior R&D director at SAS Institute and co-authored Categorical Data Analysis Using the SAS System. Stokes is also a fellow of the ASA and has been recognized by the ASA with the Founders Award for distinguished service to the organization.

A more recent graduate of the BSPH in biostatistics is Daniel Malawsky, who graduated in 2020 with a double major in biostatistics and math. Malawsky is also a concert-level cellist. A Morehead-Cain scholar at UNC, Malawsky was recently awarded the Churchill Scholarship to complete a master’s degree focusing on medical genetic research at Cambridge. He will then continue his education at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, pursuing his PhD under a Gates-Cambridge Scholarship and studying the impact of genetic variation on health in underserved populations. 

Common Paths and First Destinations

The degree prepares students for a variety of first destinations: graduate work in biostatistics or statistics; medical school; and employment in other fields.

Approximately half the students complete a second major, with the most common discipline being math. In 2019, half the graduates (14 out of 28) were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. About two-thirds of the last two graduating classes were female, which may partially reflect the gender distribution at UNC-CH.

Students who choose to immediately enter the job market have found success. Workplaces such as IQVIA, Rho, PPD, RTI, FHI 360, and SAS are among the local employers who seek out these students. Typical job titles may include programmer analyst, statistical programmer, statistician, data scientist, or data analyst.

For example, Emma Crenshaw, a BSPH biostatistics graduate in 2019, was hired as a statistician in the Biostatistics and Epidemiology Group at Research Triangle Institute. She shared, “I am so glad that I decided to major in biostatistics. Not only did I truly enjoy what I learned, I was introduced to a community of researchers, professors, and instructors who took a personal interest in what I was doing and what my goals are.”

Recent graduates who have immediately gone on to graduate school have matriculated to graduate programs at institutions including UNC-CH, University of Washington, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, University of Michigan, Emory, Columbia, and North Carolina State University. The most recent survey of graduates reveals that more than 60 percent of the BSPH students have pursued graduate education. The most common graduate degree fields are biostatistics, statistics, analytics, data science, and epidemiology.

Conclusion

The field of biostatistics has never been more popular. Undergraduate training in biostatistics is increasing at a fast pace as the demand for skilled, data-savvy workers explodes. Increasing undergraduate educational opportunities in biostatistics can help meet the growing demand for biostatisticians and educate the general population about using data to make informed decisions.