Mary Foulkes passed away in Traverse City, Michigan, on February 8, 2025, after a lengthy career in biostatistics and service to the profession.
Foulkes was born in St. Joseph, Michigan, the oldest of six children. She earned her undergraduate degree from Siena Heights College (now University) in Adrian, Michigan. Her interest and proficiency in math led her to pursue a master’s degree in biostatistics from the University of Michigan and a PhD in biostatistics from The University of North Carolina in 1980.
Foulkes’s career began at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where she worked on clinical trials for the Southwest Oncology Group under Edmund Gehan from 1980 to 1984. In 1985, she moved to the National Institutes of Health, first in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, then to the Division of AIDS in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, where she helped plan and coordinate AIDS trials in the early days of AIDS clinical research and eventually took on the role of biostatistics branch chief. Later, she served as deputy director and director of the office of biostatistics and epidemiology in the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. After some years at the FDA, she joined The George Washington University as a research professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics and department of health policy, where she worked until her retirement in 2019.
Foulkes was an active and highly regarded member of the statistics profession. She was a longtime member of the American Statistical Association and International Biometric Society Eastern North American Region, holding elected offices, serving on numerous committees, and acting as program chair for major meetings, including the Joint Statistical Meetings. She had a strong interest in science policy, especially as related to the statistical underpinnings of policy considerations. She served on the ASA’s Science Policy Task Force and lectured to US Senate staff members as part of an ASA series called Critical Statistical Thinking. She was a frequent speaker at both statistical and medical meetings and published many methodological and collaborative papers. She also served on editorial boards for the Journal of the American Statistical Association, Statistics in Medicine, Clinical Trials, and Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Foulkes was honored with the ASA Founders Award in 1995 and elected an ASA Fellow that same year. She became a fellow of the Society for Clinical Trials in 2009. She received multiple honors from the FDA and NIH for her important contributions to major agency initiatives.
After retiring from GWU, Foulkes moved to Traverse City, Michigan, in 2021 to be closer to her many siblings, nieces, and nephews.
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