Ronnie Sebro

Affiliation: Professor of Biostatistics and Musculoskeletal Radiology, Mayo Clinic

Ronnie Sebro grew up in Tobago, a small Caribbean Island, the third of six children: a urologist, dentist, professor (him), computer scientist, mechatronics engineer, and economist, in birth order. His parents were high-school teachers and then principals.

Since Sebro was four years old, he owned and bred Pomeranian-Pekingese pups and kept data on their genes. His family had a large variety of animals as pets at home. Sebro thinks he inherited his love of science and mathematics from his father, someone people referred to as the consummate “man of science.”

He was the first student from Tobago to receive a National Scholarship in the Sciences from the Government of Trinidad and Tobago based on his performance in the Cambridge General Certificate of Education Advanced-Level Examination. After this, Sebro graduated summa cum laude with a degree in biology and minor in mathematics from Morehouse College, which he considers one of the best historically Black colleges and universities. He was also the first student at Morehouse College to receive the Howard Hughes Medical Institute predoctoral fellowship.

While at Morehouse, Sebro attended the Summer Program in Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health led by Louis Ryan. He worked at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with Gary Uhl and, during summers in college, worked with Francine Benes, David Stone, and Sabina Berretta at McLean Hospital. These experiences affirmed his interest in becoming a biostatistician.

Sebro completed his PhD in biostatistics at Harvard University. His thesis adviser, Nan Laird, shared experiences that assisted in guiding his career.

His career differs from most statisticians because he decided to go to medical school during graduate school. While at Stanford Medical School, Sebro met Neil Risch, who has been one of his greatest mentors and advocates. He completed his internship training in internal medicine at Stanford University Hospitals and Clinics, residency in diagnostic radiology at the University of California, San Francisco, and fellowship training in musculoskeletal imaging and intervention at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

Sebro spent his junior faculty years at the University of Pennsylvania and joined the Mayo Clinic in December of 2020. Recently, he was promoted to professor of biostatistics and professor of musculoskeletal radiology at the Mayo Clinic. He was humbled to learn he is one of a handful of Black male biostatistics professors and simultaneously one of few Black male radiology professors in the United States. Though humbled, this was one of the proudest moments in his life, second only to the birth of his son and marrying his wife.

Sebro’s research focuses on statistical methods for the evaluation of artificial intelligence and machine learning models. However, he would like to do more research on diversity, equity, inclusion, and statistical genetics.