Joseph Massaro

BUSPH Faculty, Staff, Students & Alumni

Joseph Massaro, a biostatistics professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, died October 19 surrounded by his loving family. He was 58.

Joseph completed a bachelor’s of science in mathematics from Boston College in 1985 and a PhD in mathematics/statistics at Boston University in 1994. He joined the faculty of the Boston University School of Public Health Department of Biostatistics in 1998 and worked as a senior statistician on the Framingham Heart Study, assessing risk factors for cardiovascular disease and dementia. He was heavily engaged in the design and analysis of clinical trials with numerous device, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology organizations across the globe. He was also managing director of biostatistics and data management at the Harvard Clinical Research Institute.

Joe was a dedicated teacher who shepherded hundreds of students through Applied Statistical Methods in Clinical Trials I and II, winning several teaching awards in the process.

Professor of biostatistics and associate dean of education Lisa Sullivan, whose friendship and professional collaboration with Joe began in the mid-1980s, remembered him as “an incredibly dedicated” teacher and scholar whose passion for his field was an inspiration to all. “He changed lives, but never took any credit. He supported colleagues, but always under the radar. I feel so privileged to have known Joe and to be part of his amazing life,” said Sullivan, a graduate school classmate.

Kimberly Dukes, associate professor of biostatistics and executive director of the Biostatistics and Epidemiology Data Analytics Center at the Boston University School of Public Health, first met Joe in 1987 when both were graduate students. Joe had a “magnificent brain,” Dukes said, and a knack for teaching that made him able to “communicate hard concepts succinctly to his clients, colleagues, and students.”

Dukes and Joe were also colleagues at Quintiles, a large biopharmaceutical research contractor that is now IQVIA. Joe was an ideal colleague and collaborator with a gift for dealing with people as adeptly as he handled numbers. Said Dukes, “Professionally, he was on top, integrating kindness and humor into every situation, leaving you feeling like you couldn’t wait until the next encounter.”

Over the past several weeks, friends, colleagues, and family members shared stories about “how wonderful and unique Joe was, telling stories that made you laugh and cry,” Dukes said. “He made everything better, and I feel privileged that I was part of his life.” Joe was an incredible scholar, teacher, and colleague.

Joe loved his family and is survived by his wife, Monica, also a statistician, and their two beautiful daughters, Anna and Karina.

There are no words to appropriately express the void left by Joe, yet all remain grateful for having had the opportunity to work alongside him.

Memorial contributions may be made to a fund set up by the Boston University School of Public Health to support Anna and Karina’s education, something that was incredibly important to Joe.

Tim Holt

Former president of the Royal Statistical Society, Tim Holt passed away on November 15, 2022.

Tim was president of the society from 2005 to 2007, and the theme of his presidential address was “public confidence in the official statistics system and its relationship to evidence-based public policy.” Tim became an RSS fellow in 1977, was a member of council from 1987 to 1991 and 2000 to 2009, and was joint editor of the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, from 1991 to 1993.

Tim had a long and distinguished career in official statistics, beginning in 1970 at Statistics Canada. He returned to the United Kingdom in 1973 to take up a lectureship at the University of Southampton. He was later appointed Leverhulme Professor of Social Statistics, a post he held from 1980 to 1995, and was deputy vice chancellor from 1990 to 1995.

Tim was an important academic social statistician whose research and teaching influenced many people across the world. In 1995, Tim led the merger of the Central Statistical Office and Office of Population Censuses and Surveys to form the Office for National Statistics, providing a more integrated and comprehensive service to government and the wider community. He was therefore in the unique position of being the last director of the CSO and the first director of the ONS and ex officio registrar general.

On his retirement from the ONS in 2000, Tim was made Companion of the Order of the Bath. He then returned to a chair in social statistics at the University of Southampton, later to become emeritus professor.

After retiring from Southampton, he continued to be active within official statistics through consultancy work and activities such as chairing the UNSC friends of chair meetings on statistical indicators and the RSS National Statistics Working Party. Former RSS President Denise Lievesley said, “Tim had a solid core of integrity. He cared deeply about what was right. He was a really nice person, exceptionally kind, never pushy, always listening to what one had to say, and lovely company in an understated way.”

A full obituary will be published in a forthcoming edition of the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A.