BIOMETRICS SECTION NEWSLETTER, February 2008

BIOMETRICS SECTION NEWSLETTER, February 2008
Edited by Ralitza Gueorguieva, Biometrics Section Publications Officer

WELCOME 2008 SECTION OFFICERS!
The Biometrics Section would like to introduce you to the current members of the Section's Executive Committee. Before doing so we give a deserving “Thank You!” to the outgoing members.

The Section Chair for 2008 is Jeremy Taylor. Jeremy is the Pharmacia Research Professor of Biostatistics and a Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology in the School of Medicine at the University of Michigan . He received his Ph.D. in Statistics from UC Berkeley and was on the faculty at UCLA from 1983 to 1998, when he moved to the University of Michigan . He has worked in various areas of statistics and biostatistics, including Box-Cox transformations, longitudinal and survival analysis, cure models, missing data, smoothing methods, surrogate and auxiliary variables. He has been heavily involved in collaborations in the areas of radiation oncology, cancer research and bioinformatics.

Jeremy Taylor takes over for Tom Ten Have (Section Chair 2007). Tom is a Professor in the Department of Biostatistics & Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania 's School of Medicine . Tom joined the Biostatistics faculty at Penn in 1997, after five years at the Center for Biostatistics & Epidemiology at the Penn State University College of Medicine in Hershey. His statistical research interests are in categorical data analysis,
random effects models, informative dropout, and causal modeling of treatment
non-adherence, mediation and post-randomization stratification of complex behavioral
interventions.

Our Chair-Elect for 2009 is Daniel Heitjan . Dan is a Professor of Biostatistics and Statistics at the University of Pennsylvania . He previously worked at UCLA (1985-1988), Penn State (1988-1995) and Columbia University (1995-2002). His research is in the areas of incomplete data, clinical trials, longitudinal studies, health economics and pharmacogenomics. His collaborative work has been predominantly in cancer and in cardiac surgery.

Jianwen Cai will continue serving as our secretary/treasurer in 2008. Jianwen is Professor of Biostatistics at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill . She received her Ph.D. from University of Washington and is serving as an associate editor of Biometrics and Lifetime Data Analysis. Her primary research interests are in survival analysis, design and analysis of clinical trials and analysis of correlated responses. Her research focus is in cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Mahlet Tadesse will continue serving as our Continuing Education Chair. Mahlet is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Georgetown University . She obtained her Sc.D. in Biostatistics from Harvard University . Her research interests are in statistical methods for gene expression analysis, integration of various genomic data sources and Bayesian modeling and inference.

Debashis Ghosh follows Runze Li as the Biometrics Section Program Chair to the 2008 JSM Program Committee. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics at Penn State University . Debashis received his doctorate in biostatistics from University of Washington and was on the faculty at the Department of Biostatistics at University of Michigan until this summer. His research interests focus on the analysis of functional genomic data, nonparametric and semiparametric inferential procedures, machine learning methodologies and multiple testing.

Timothy Johnson follows John Preisser as the Biometrics Section Program Chair for the 2008 ENAR Meeting Program. Timothy is a Research Associate Professor and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Michigan . He received his Ph.D. in Biostatistics from UCLA and was on the faculty at UCLA until 2001. He joined the faculty in Biostatistics at Michigan in 2001, where he is also a member of the Biostatistics Core of the Comprehensive Cancer Center .

Amita Manatunga continues to serve as a Representative to the Council of Sections. She is a Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University . She received her Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Rochester . Her research interests include the theory and applications of multivariate survival data, methods development for analyzing data from reproductive health and mental health studies.

Diana Miglioretti also continues in her role as a Council of Sections representative. Diana is an Associate Scientific Investigator at the Center for Health Studies, Group Health Cooperative and an Affiliate Associate Professor at the University of Washington Department of Biostatistics. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biostatistics at John Hopkins
University . Her primary research interests are in statistical issues related to breast and colorectal cancer screening. These include the evaluation of screening and diagnostic tools, the assessment of screening patterns over time, and the modeling of multivariate, longitudinal, and clustered data.

Michael Daniels follows Susan Groshen as our third Council of Sections Representative. He will serve in this role for 2008-2010. Michael is a Professor in the Department of Statistics and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Florida . He received his doctorate from Harvard and was on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University and Iowa State University prior to moving to Florida . His main areas of interest in research include Bayesian statistics, biostatistics, hierarchical modeling, and estimation of covariance matrices.

Bonnie LaFleur serves as the Chair of the Strategic Initiatives Committee. Bonnie obtained her doctorate in Biometrics in 1999 from the University of Colorado in Denver and was an Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center until 2007. She is currently on the faculty of the Section of Biostatistics at the University of Utah . Her research interests include permutation and nonparametric statistics, generalized linear models and analysis of linear and nonlinear mixed models.

Ralitza Gueorguieva continues serving as the Section's Publication officer. Ralitza received her doctorate in statistics from the University of Florida in 1999 and has been a member of the biostatistics faculty at the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale University since 2000. Her main research interests are in statistical methods for longitudinal and clustered data and applications in psychiatry and mental health.

Gerald Beck is our Amstat Online Assistant Editor (also known as our Webmaster). He is Acting Chairman of the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. His primary interest is in the design, conduct, and analysis of clinical trials. He serves as Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator of data coordinating centers for multi-center clinical studies supported by NIH, including the Dialysis Access Consortium (DAC) and the Hemodialysis (HEMO) Study.

INTERESTED IN HELPING OUT AT THE JSM?
Want to get more involved in JSM but aren't planning to submit an abstract? Consider volunteering to chair a session. Chairing a session is an important responsibility and a great way to meet your colleagues. If you are interested, contact our Section's 2008 Program Chair, Debashis Ghosh , at ( ghoshd@psu.edu ).

NOMINATIONS SOUGHT FOR 2008 BYAR YOUNG INVESTIGATOR AWARD AND BIOMETRICS SECTION TRAVEL AWARDS
Do you know a young investigator who is planning to submit an abstract for the 2008 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM)? If so, you may wish to alert that individual that the ASA Biometrics Section is seeking nominations for the 2008 David P. Byar Young Investigator Award. This annual award is given to a young investigator for best emerging work to be presented at the JSM. The award is in memory of David Byar, an internationally known biostatistician who made significant contributions to the development and application of statistical methods and was esteemed as an exceptional mentor during his career at the National Cancer Institute. The winner will receive a $1,000 cash award.

In addition to the Byar Award, the Section may also provide additional travel awards to the authors of other outstanding papers that are submitted to the Byar award competition.

Having held a doctorate in statistics, biostatistics or related quantitative field for three years or less as of April 1 of the current year or being currently enrolled as a student in a doctoral program in statistics or biostatistics and in active pursuit of a doctoral degree.
Being a current member of the ASA Biometrics Section (applicant may join at the time of submission for only a $3 annual membership fee). Please note that membership in ASA does not automatically confer Section membership; ASA members must join individual sections in addition to their generic membership. You must join the Biometrics Section to be eligible.
Being first author of the paper submitted for consideration for the Award. The paper may be unsubmitted, submitted or under review, but may not have already appeared in a journal either on-line or in print at the time of the application or have been accepted for publication as of January 1 of 2008.
Being scheduled to present the same paper submitted for the Award at the 2008 Joint Statistical Meetings in Denver as either a talk or poster presentation.

Applicants are encouraged but not required to submit their abstract to the Biometrics Section.

For the 2008 competition, the application materials should consist of, in electronic format:

A cover letter certifying that the applicant meets the eligibility requirements
A current CV
One copy of the finished paper (drafts are not acceptable) Applicants are also invited to submit one copy each of supplementary published or in-press papers if they compose a body of scientific work related to the paper to be presented. If these are not available electronically, please contact the Chair of the committee at the e-mail address below

The 2008 Awards Committee, chaired by Dr. Thomas Ten Have, is composed of the 2008 current and past section Chairs and Chair-Elect as well as three additional individuals to be appointed by the section Chairs prior to the competition. Information regarding this award is also available on the Section webpage, easily accessed by clicking on the “Section” tab at the top of the ASA website (www.amstat.org).

All materials, including the paper, must be submitted electronically on or before March 1, 2008.

Applications and questions should be sent to Tom Ten Have at ttenhave@upenn.edu.

We emphasize that the award is for Young Investigators with novel methodological research.