Affiliation
Principal Investigator, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Education
PhD, Biomathematics, University of Washington
MA, Mathematics, Brandeis University
BS, Mathematics, Simmons College
As a kid growing up in Connecticut, Clarice Weinberg was pretty good at math and logic puzzles and received a lot of encouragement from her engineer dad.
Weinberg earned a BS and MA in mathematics but wasn’t sure what to do next. She had never studied statistics, which seemed pretty boring to her, but she thought it was important to find something useful to do with math. She ultimately earned her PhD in biomathematics in 1980 at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Following two years on the faculty there, Weinberg was recruited by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences as a biostatistician in the Biostatistics Branch. She became chief of that branch in 1997.
Recognition for Weinberg has included the Nathan Mantel Award for lifetime contributions to statistical methods in epidemiology and the Janet Norwood Award for contributions by a woman to statistics. However, her proudest moment as a biostatistician was probably being elected a fellow of the ASA.
Weinberg holds adjunct professorships in the biostatistics department and epidemiology department at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has served on committees for the National Academies of Science and Health Effects Institute. What excites her most about statistics is finding that statisticians can sometimes develop new methods of analysis that reveal scientific insights that are totally new.
Weinberg’s overall interests have centered on devising improved methods for design and analysis of epidemiologic studies and applying those methods to epidemiologic research. She is active in breast cancer research and working with two biostatistics graduate students to develop stochastic search methods to identify sets of gene variants and sets of exposures that synergistically influence risk.
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