BIOSTAT E-NEWS
Volume 2, Issue 1 - February 2005
This
biannual bulletin is
distributed to the alumni of the Department of Biostatistics at the
University of Washington.
To
include your news in future issues, e-mail E-News editor Elaine Riot.
Biostat Professor John Storey Nominated for the Pew Scholars Program
Kudos
to Biostat Assistant
Professor John Storey, who was
nominated by the UW for the Pew Scholars Program in
the Biomedical Sciences. The fellowship is designed to financially
support beginning investigators of outstanding promise in the basic and
clinical sciences relevant to human health. The presidents of a limited
number of institutions (selected for scope of involvement in biomedical
research) are invited to nominate one candidate for the Pew Program, so
John's selection by the University is quite an honor.After receiving a Ph.D. in Statistics and Genetics from Stanford University and spending a year on the faculty at UC Berkeley, John joined UW Biostat in 2003, with an adjunct appointment in Genome Sciences. John works on developing statistical methods to simultaneously analyze the functions of thousands of genes. It is impressive that he already has a number of first-authored articles in high-end journals, such as Annals of Statistics and JRSS-B. John was also already awarded his own NIH grant last year.
Alum Bruce Lindsay Named Willaman Professor of Statistics at Penn State
Congratulations
to Bruce G. Lindsay (Ph.D.
78-Breslow), recently named the Willaman
Professor of Statistics in the Eberly College of Science at Penn
State. The Willaman professorships provide supplemental support for
outstanding faculty members to further research, teaching, and service.Bruce, currently Distinguished Professor of Statistics and director of the Center for Likelihood Studies at Penn, has made major scientific contributions in the areas of likelihood-based statistical inferences and methods for mixture models, for which he is recognized as adding to the foundations of the statistical theory. In recent years he has worked on statistical challenges in the analysis of key biological data for genomic studies. Lindsay's research work has been recognized with a Humboldt Senior Scientist Research Award in 1990 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996. In 1997 he was co-winner of the Snedecor Award given by the Council of Presidents of Statistical Societies. In 1996, and 1998 - 2000, Bruce served as head of the Penn State Department of Statistics.
Farewell to Georgia Thompson
Georgia
Thompson, a
great friend and supporter of the Department, died at 84 on November 8,
2004. She will be greatly missed. Georgia, the wife of former Biostat
Chair and beloved colleague, Donovan J. Thompson, helped the Department
to establish a student scholarship fund in his honor after his death in
1991. It is typical of her generosity that she remained connected to
Biostat to the end. Here's an excerpt from her obituary, which captures
a bit of her spirit, published in the Seattle papers:"Georgia Mennes Thompson was born July 12, 1920, in Baldwin, Wisconsin and grew up in Hudson, Wisconsin, where she graduated from high school. During World War II she worked at Northern Pump, Minneapolis Minnesota, and subsequently raised her two daughters in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, until moving to Seattle in 1966. In later years she and her Sand Point Country Club golfing buddies worked in the buyback department at the University of Washington bookstore... She is survived by her sister, Marjorie Bruns of Middleton, WI; sons-in-law, Burdett Loomis and Rolf Rundquist, with whom she enjoyed manhattans, wine, and political discussions; her daughters Tove Thompson, Seattle, Michel Loomis, Lawrence, KS; and two grandsons, Casey Rundquist and Dakota Loomis. Georgia had a generous heart, a sarcastic wit and gave common sense counsel to family and dear long-term friends in equal measure. We will miss her. Memorials are suggested to Providence Hospice or, Georgia's favorite charity, the Donovan J. Thompson Scholarship Fund at the University of Washington Department of Biostatistics."
The Collaborative Health Studies Coordinating Center
A number
of Biostat alums have
served as research assistants at CHS, now known as the
Collaborative Health Studies
Coordinating Center (CHSCC). Currently, six Biostat faculty and 12
RAs work at CHSCC, run by Dick
Kronmal (Prof-Biostat),
helping to provide biostatistical consultation, coordinating and data
management services for several large, multi-center biomedical research
studies, clinical trials, and ancillary studies. Studies coordinated at
the Center include the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS, a
population-based longitudinal study of 5888 elderly subjects), the
Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA, a cohort study of the
progression of sub-clinical disease in a population-based sample of
6,500 asymptomatic subjects), and the Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory Study
(GEMS, a 5 year randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical
trial of Gingko biloba in 3,074 subjects for the prevention of
dementia)."Working at the CC as a research assistant offers students exposure to several large, nationwide studies and relevant, hands-on experience," says Alice Arnold (Ph.D.`92-van Belle), Associate Director of CHSCC. "As students progress in their course work in the department, they have the opportunity to move beyond preparing data sets to performing data analysis for manuscripts, first working with a mentor, and then serving as the sole biostatistician on a paper. Thus, many students publish applied papers prior to graduation. Several Biostatistics graduates currently have research scientist positions with the Coordinating Center, including Emily (Marino) Larsen (M.S. 2000-Hughes), Do Peterson (M.S. 2001-McKnight), Craig Johnson (M.S. `97-Sheppard), Robyn McClelland (Ph.D. 2000-Kronmal) and me! As students, Robyn and Emily were RAs at the CC, and Robyn's dissertation work derived from issues involving data from the Cardiovascular Health Study."
Providing high quality services on such a large scale is a collaborative affair, and the Coordinating Center staff is comprised of over 50 highly trained biostatisticians, epidemiologists, project managers, programmers, analysts, fiscal experts and administrators. Formerly housed in downtown offices, last year the Center moved to new digs (pictured above) at the former Sandpoint Naval Base.
Alum Gary Churchill of the Jackson Lab Breeds Mice for Genetic Analysis
"I
have
turned a career
in statistics into a career in breeding mice for genetic analysis,"
says Gary Churchill (Ph.D.
`88-Breslow). "It's all in the combinatorics." Gary,
Staff Scientist at The Jackson Lab in
Bar Harbor, Maine, has proposed a cooperative mouse-breeding effort to
help coordinate scientific efforts worldwide and further genetic
research. The project, "The Collaborative Cross," is a publicly
accessible stock of in-bred mice; the ultimate goal is to breed virtual
clones that researchers could use to build on each other's work. Gary
and his group of geneticists will crossbreed 8 common strains of mice,
producing (in four generations) litters with all possible permutations
of great-grandparents. Then they will be inbred until the offspring are
essentially clones. After 20 generations (about 7 years) they hope to
come up with 1000 different strains. These recombinant inbred lines
would represent much of the genetic variation present in natural
populations. Gary notes that rodent research offers the opportunity to control the myriad variables that make studies in humans difficult, if not impossible. The Collaborative Cross is meant to complement existing efforts, and the scientists hope to provide a unique mechanism for functional studies of biological networks that will be a powerful tool in understanding the mysteries of diseases like diabetes, auto-immune disorders and Alzheimer's. Check out what else Gary is up to on his Web site.
Related Articles:
Hampton, Tracy: Shuffling Mouse's Genetic Deck May Illuminate Causes of Complex Diseases JAMA, December 1, 2004-Vol. 292, No. 21, 2568.
The Complex Trait Consortium: The Collaborative Cross, a community resource for the genetic analysis of complex traits, Nature Genetics, November 2004, Vol. 36, Number 11, 1133-37.
Who's Your (Academic) Daddy? Mommy?
by Laura Lee Johnson (Ph.D. 2002)
Did
you know you can trace your mathematical roots through your academic
family tree? The folks at the Mathematics Genealogy Project (MGP) have
made it their mission to trace the intellectual history of mathematics
(broadly defined to include fields like statistics and computer
science) by cataloging information on individuals with doctoral degrees
in the field. In their vernacular, your parent is your doctoral
advisor. I was quite honored to find out my "great grandfather" was
Samuel Wilkes, by way of "grandfather," Wilfrid Dixon, the doctoral
advisor of my academic "mom," Paula
Diehr (Prof-Biostat). You can see what I
mean by visiting my MGP page
(then go back in time by clicking the advisor links).Started in 1997, the Mathematics Genealogy Project now has records on more than 84,000 scholars from over 1000 institutions in eighty different countries. In many cases this makes it possible to trace a person's academic roots well back into the nineteenth century. For a kick, look up Norman Breslow (Prof-Biostat) and keep clicking backwards. You'll find he's one of 21,482 known descendants of Karl Christian von Langsdorf who earned his doctoral degree in 1781.
All research statisticians (with doctoral degrees) are encouraged to sign up. Complete records from a given university of all its Ph.D. degree recipients are especially solicited (hint hint). Several UW Biostat alumni I know are missing, so please check the MGP Web site for your name and send them any missing data (Ross Prentice (Prof-Biostat), this means you). Hopefully students and faculty throughout the UW Biostat system will fill out records and someday the walls of Biostat will be filled with our trees. Besides, what would make a better thank-you present than a T-shirt or poster of your advisor's genealogy with his or her newly minted Ph.D. added to the picture?
Norm Breslow Reconnects with Old Friends at Nobel Mini-Symposium
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Three of the seven Ph.D.s in the current, growing faculty of the Biostatistics Program at the Karolinska Institute have strong connections with UW Biostat. Juni Palmgren (pictured far left), leader of the Biostatistics group at the Institute (and Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Mathematical Statistics in Stockholm), spent a year with us in 1988-89 as an NIH Fogarty Fellow. Former Biostat faculty member Yudi Pawitan and wife Marie Reilly (Ph.D. `91-Pepe), are thriving there as full-time Professors of Biostatistics. You can check out their Institute faculty pages here. Juni Palmgren mentioned that she considered Norm to be one of the "fathers" of their program, in view of the strong UW influence. "It was great to have the Nobel Foundation pay some attention to medical statistics," said Norm, "and even more to see the prominent role being played by our former students, professors and associates in the development of the discipline in Sweden."
STUDENT AWARDS
++Holly Janes (Margaret Pepe advisee) was awarded 1st prize for the best student presentation for her paper, "Statistical Models for Air Pollution and Health Effects," at the 2004 Joint Statistical Meetings in Toronto, Canada. ++Chuan Zhou (Jon Wakefield advisee) was awarded 1st runner-up (tie) for Best Student Paper Award for his paper, "A Bayesian hierarchical regression model for curve partitioning," at the 2004 WNAR/IMS spring meeting in Albuquerque, NM. ++Lihong Qi (C.Y. Wang and Ross Prentice advisee) was awarded 1st runner-up (tie) for Best Student Paper Award for her paper, "Weighted estimators for proportional hazards regression with missing covariates," at the 2004 WNAR/IMS spring meeting in Albuquerque, NM.++Congratulations to Holly, Chuan and Lihong!
RECENT GRADUATES
++Sebastien
Haneuse (Ph.D. 2004, Jon Wakefield
advisee) was recently
appointed to the faculty as Assistant Professor in Biostatistics at
Vanderbilt University in
Nashville, TN. ++Jonathan Schildcrout (Ph.D.
2004, Patrick Heagerty advisee) was
also
appointed to the faculty as Assistant Professor in Biostatistics at
Vanderbilt University in
Nashville, TN. ++Chuan Zhou (Ph.D.
2003, Jon Wakefield advisee) accepted a post-doctoral fellow position
at the Veteran's Administration
(with Prof Andrew Zhou).++Mary Redman (Ph.D.
2004, Babette Brumback advisee) accepted a post-doctoral fellow
position at UW Dental Public Health Sciences (with
Prof Brian Leroux).
++Petra Buzkova (Ph.D.
2004, Thomas Lumley advisee) accepted a position as Research Assistant
Professor of Biostatistics, University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
++Tracy Bergemann (Ph.D.
2004, Lu Ping Zhao advisee) took a position as Research Associate,
Biostatistics Core, University of Minnesota
Cancer Center.
++ Lu Chen (Ph.D. 2004, Li
Hsu advisee) took an appointment
as a postdoctoral fellow at the Fred
Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC). ++ Zheng Zhang (Ph.D. 2004, Margaret Pepe
advisee)
accepted an appointment as Assistant Professor at the Rollins School of
Public Health, Department of Biostatistics, Emory
University. ++Hao Liu (Ph.D.
2004, Jon Wellner advisee) has been appointed
as Assistant Adjunct Professor, Biostatistics Unit, in the Department
of Public Health Sciences, University of
California at Davis. ++Bryan
Comstock (M.S. 2004; Donna Pauler Ankert advisee) took a
position as Biostatistician at the MCRC,
University of Washington.
++Blazej Neradilek (M.S.
2004, Nayak Polissar advisee)is a Statistical Consultant at
Mountain Whisperlight Statistical Consulting,
Seattle.
++Yun Xu (M.S. 2004, Barry
Storer advisee) recently received his doctorate in
Pharmaceutics at UW.
++Alicia Sato (M.S. 2004,
Martin McIntosh advisee)
is now a Statistical Research
Associate at the FHCRC.
Other recent graduates are James Ochieng Okuma
(M.S. 2004, Barbra Richardson advisee) and
Zhuo (Tracy) Zhang (M.S. 2004,
Diana Miglioretti advisee). Congratulations
to all!
PAST GRADUATES AND CURRENT FACULTY
++Christiana Drake (Ph.D. 1989,
Lloyd Fisher advisee), Associate Professor of
Statistics, University of California at Davis, is President of the
Western North American Region (WNAR) of the International Biometric
Society (IBS). ++Todd
Alonzo (Ph.D. 2000, Margaret Pepe advisee),
Assistant Professor, Biostatistics at University of Southern
California, was elected to the Regional Committee of WNAR. ++Barbra Richardson,
Research Associate Professor of Biostatisics, was elected to the
Regional
Committee of WNAR. ++Ken
Kopecky, Affiliate Biostat Professor and
Member, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, was elected Treasurer
of WNAR. ++Steve
Millard (Ph.D. `85-Peter Guttorp advisee) has recently
produced
his first CD of new jazz standards called "Wrapped up in Your Kiss."
Visit this link to
read more about it.UPCOMING EVENTS
++Ross Prentice (Prof, Biostat and former FHCRC director) will give this quarter's SPHCM Distinguished Faculty Lecture, "What's New in the Women's Health Initiative: A Statistical Perspective," on March 3, from 3:30 to 5 p.m., in Hogness Auditorium, with a reception following; Tom Fleming (Biostat Prof and Chair) will formally announce the establishment of the Ross Prentice Endowed Professorship at this event. Look for Ross' article (with Tom's intro) in the upcoming Winter 2005 issue of SPHCM's Spotlight on Research, which should be posted 2/16.
++The 2005 WNAR spring meeting will be held at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks June 21-24, 2005. More information on this year's meeting is available at the WNAR Web site and the WNAR 2005 meeting Web site.
++The Third Seattle Symposium in Biostatistics: Statistical Genetics and Genomics, will be held at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel and Towers in Seattle November 21-22, 2005. The symposium will be preceded by short courses in microarray analysis and modern population genetics on Saturday, November 19 and Sunday, November 20. For more details, please click here.
SPHCM Alumni Half-Day, April 14
Learn
what's
happening in public health, get an update on the School, and catch up
with your colleagues at the SPHCM alumni event, "Perspectives in Public Health," on April 14,
2005. The half-day, which marks the School's
35th anniversary, will include two lectures: The
Fight Against HIV and AIDS: Perspective
from Mozambique, by Dr. Stephen Gloyd,
Professor of Health Services, Director of the International Health
Program, and Executive Director of HAI, and Dr. Humberto Cossa, SPHCM
alum and Sr. Health Specialist for Mozambique at the World Bank; and Hope or Hype: The Obsession with Medical
Advances and the High Cost of False Promises,
given by Dr. Donald Patrick, Professor of Health Services and Director
of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Program. There will also be seven
breakout sessions, led by department chairs and program directors, to
learn about significant new developments in Biostatistics,
Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Epidemiology, Health
Services, Pathobiology, the MHA Program, and Nutritional Sciences. The
event is scheduled from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the HUB Ballroom. You
can register online or call
206-543-0540. Admission cost before April 7 is $35 ( $28 UWAA member);
after April 7, $50 ($40 UWAA member).ALUMNI PROFILES: IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Former students choose from a list of questions to create their own unique alumni profile.
Name: Anne YorkPicture: Anne and her husband, Harvey Friedman
Biostat Degree/Year: M.S. 1979 - Chapman
Current Job/Employer: Retired in 2003 from the National Marine Mammal Laboratory, part of the federal fisheries service, in Seattle. I did population biology, data analysis, experimental design, etc., on questions concerning the northern fur seal and stellar sea lion populations in Alaska. This was a great job that gave me the opportunity to travel to interesting places and work with great people. Presently, I am doing independent consulting work. The downside is that most of the traveling I do now, I have to pay for.
Favorite book(s)/movies: Last movie seen was Napoleon Dynamite. Sweet. For recreation, I read murder mysteries. I'd love any recommendations for authors.
Favorite web sites: These are the ones I visit most often: Google -- you all know that one; http://www.smirkingchimp.com, a web site that lets me know that W is even worse than I thought he could ever be; and cran.us.r-project.org, the website for R software and documentation.
Hobby: Orienteering, a navigation sport. This is great fun for map freaks who like to work out or for someone who wants to learn how to navigate. Mushroom hunting -- this year was a fabulous year for chanterelles.
Research interests: Population biology and modeling.
Current research: I'm working with scientists from the Alaska Sea Life Center analyzing growth and feeding data from captive harbor seals and sea lions; working with a fisheries ecologist from UCSB on community ecology of rockfishes. The latter is particularly interesting, since these data are collected using a submarine - quite a departure from common fisheries methods.
Personal milestones: Harvey Friedman and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary last July! No kids yet! These genes have apparently stopped dead in their tracks.
Favorite reminiscence about Biostat days: Several of us were in Sam Bledsoe's ecological modeling class and we were trying to develop a model of blue something grass in Colorado. I think the closest we got to anything that looked like grass was in the debugging phase. It was a computer printout of a trace of all the functions that looked vaguely like grass when you turned it on its side. Present day students will have a lot of trouble relating to this because to run a program now, you run it on a PC. In the olden days, we had to type the IBM cards, hand them in the input window, and receive the printed output quite a bit later - sometimes several hours later (even days), if the computer went down.
Fellow alumni are welcome to contact me at: york@zipcon.net
Other comments: I'd love to hear from some old friends.
Name: Lori E. DoddPhoto: Lori and her daughter, Madeline
Biostat Degree/Year: Ph.D. 2001-Pepe
Current Job/Employer: Mathematical Statistician in the Biometric Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute
Favorite book(s)/movies: A Passage to India
Favorite web sites: Google, http://www.cookinglight.com and http://www.nytimes.com (boring, eh?)
Hobby: I love to travel, cook and run.
Research interests: Medical diagnostic testing, medical imaging, microarray data analysis.
Interesting biostat publication: Semiparametric regression for the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, JASA, 98: 409-417, a real page turner.
Current research: The past couple of weeks, I've been working on a data analysis examining biological pathways associated with the development of nasopharyngeal cancer.
Personal milestones: Married to Trevor Reeve, an economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington DC. We have a charming daughter, Madeline Dodd Reeve, who was born in October of 2003.
Favorite reminiscence about Biostat days: My most favorite memories involve Zoe Moodie, most of which probably aren't best suited for publication. I have fond memories of Do Peterson's disco parties and the wild dance moves of some of the faculty (who will remain unnamed). I'll also never forget dressing up as the Spice Girls with Zoe, Jean Engels (Mundahl), Anne-Louise Leutenegger and my mother for an evening of Halloween festivities at Todd Alonzo's home and later at Martha Nason's haunted house.
Fellow alumni are welcome to contact me at: doddl@mail.nih.gov
Other comments: I had a great (admittedly, some of it was grueling and depressing) experience as a graduate student in the UW Biostat program. Working with Margaret Pepe as my thesis advisor was a highlight of my educational experience.