Arnab Maity Awarded Pathway to Independence Award

Arnab Maity, Research Fellow in Biostatistics, has been awarded the Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00 award) from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to conduct research on "Statistical Methods for Genes and Environment." The initial K99 phase will provide mentored support for postdoctoral research. This phase will be followed by 3 years of R00 independent support after he starts a faculty position in an academic institute. Congratulations, Arnab!

Alumnus Melody Goodman to Serve on NY Minority Health Council

Dr. Melody Goodman, currently Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University Medical Center, has been and confirmed for appointment as a member of the Minority Health Council of the State of New York. Melody is an alumnus of our program, receiving her PhD in Biostatistics in 2006. The Department would like to offer their congratulations to her for this well-deserved honor!

2010 ENAR Distinguished Paper Award

Doctoral student Miguel Marino has won one of the 2010 ENAR Distinguished Paper Awards. The award winning paper is entitled "Inference of Factor Analysis with Large p and Small n: understanding the change patterns of the US cancer mortality rates". Miguel coauthored this paper with Dr. Yi Li, his dissertation advisor. He will present the paper and receive his prize in the March 2010 spring meeting in New Orleans, LA. Congratulations to Miguel!

Xihong Lin named as President of COPSS

The Department of Biostatistics would like to extend their congratulations to Dr. Xihong Lin, professor in the Department of Biostatistics, who has been selected as the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) President for 2010-2012. Her term will begin on January 1.

The purpose of the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) is to work on shared problems and improve intersociety communication. The committee includes the 5 major statistical societies in North American as the charter members.

The Loss of One of Our Own

The Department of Biostatistics mourns the passing of Dr. Stephen Lagakos. To read more about Steve's life, please visit this website.

One of the Most Popular Papers Published in 2009

Sometimes what we write is read. Congratulations to the authors of one of the "Most popular papers published so far in 2009" in Series A of the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Cluster designs to assess the prevalence of acute malnutrition by lot quality assurance sampling: a validation study by computer simulation by Casey Olives, Marcello Pagano, Megan Deitchler, Bethany L. Hedt, Kari Egge and Joseph J. Valadez.

2009 Harvard Award in Psychiatric Epidemiology and Biostatistics Announcement

The Department of Biostatistics is delighted to announce that Professor Nan Laird is this year's recipient of the Harvard Award in Psychiatric Epidemiology and Biostatistics. The award recognizes Professor Laird’s lifelong career contributions that have significantly advanced the field of Psychiatric Biostatistics. Professor Laird will present the award lecture at the Harvard School of Public Health during the 2010 Spring Semester (date to be announced).

Department Welcomes Our Incoming Class

The incoming class to the Department of Biostatistics consists of 19 students. Of the nineteen new students, 14 are enrolled in our Ph.D. doctoral program, and 5 in our Master's program. Of these new degree students, 12 are U.S. citizens or permanent residents and 7 are international students. There are 9 women and 10 men, and their prior degrees are distributed as follows (4 have a prior Master's degree, 15 enter with Bachelor's degrees). The Department welcomes the new students to our program and wishes them every success during their stay with us and beyond.

The New Faces - (left to right) Front Row: Natalie Exner, Lauren Kunz, Robert Chang, Christina McIntosh Back Row: Rui Zhao, Kate Fisher, Eric Solis, Emmanuel Dimont, Mark Meyer, Travis Gerke, David Swanson, Sung Eun Choi, Hwee Pin Phua. Missing from Photo: Kathryn Fitzgerald, Shira Mitchell, Rajarshi Mukherjee, Rebecca Payne, Jarupon Sathirapongsasuti, and Richard White

You may view a set of pictures of the incoming class taken from the 2009-2010 Photo Directory (internal only) here when they are made available.

Emmanuel Dimont Receives First VSL Fellowship

The Department is proud to announce that Emmanuel Dimont, an incoming PhD student, has received the inaugural Vasilios Stavros Lagakos (VSL) Fellowship for biostatics graduate study at Harvard.

The VSL Fellowship was established to promote senior-level expertise in the field of biostatistics in regions of the world where improvements in such expertise would meaningfully advance public health, and supports the tuition/stipend expenses of Fellows. More details about the program can be found at: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/biostats/welcome/Lagakos_Fellowship/index.htm.

Emmanel Dimont is an ideal choice for the first VSL Fellowship. In addition to his outstanding record, Emmanuel has demonstrated a strong desire to promote public health upon his return to Cyprus after completing his PhD. Congratulations Emmanuel!

Shira Mitchell Receives Honorable Mention for Cox Award

Incoming doctoral student Shira Mitchell has been selected as as Honorable Mention recipient for the Gertrude Cox Scholarship. The Cox award is given annually to a promising female graduate student in statistics, and presented at the Joint Statistical Meetings. Congratulations Shira!

Megan Othus Wins ASA Award

We are pleased to announce that Megan Othus has been chosen as this year’s winner of the ASA Statistics in Epidemiology Section's Student Travel Award for her paper, “Marginalized Frailty Models for Multivariate Survival Data”. She will be presented the award at this year's JSM (Joint Statistical Meeting). Congratulations Megan!

Harvard Biostats Team in the Boston AIDS Walk 2009

Congratulations to the Department of Biostatistics, CBAR, and the Summer Program for another successful year of participation in the Boston AIDS Walk! With over 50 walkers and runners, our team raised $6519, with donations still coming. Thanks to everyone for their support of this important community event!

To see photos of the day's event, please go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/fiamh/sets/72157619399551534/

Congratulations Graduates!

The Department of Biostatistics would like to offer their congratulations and best wishes to our students who graduated in the 2009 Spring Commencement ceremony. Receiving a Doctorate of Philosophy degree were Thomas Hoffmann, Kaveh Maghsoudi, Justin Manjourides, Melissa Naylor, Megan Othus, Roman Torgovitsky, Lu Wang, Michael Wu, and Jing Jenny Zhang. Receiving a Master of Science degree were Lisa Aaron, Miao Chen, Yen-Tsung Huang, Mufaro Kanyangarara, Miles Ott, Angie Rodday, Lei Shen, Jennifer Uyanik, and Wai-Ki Yip. Jamie Choi, Brian Claggett, Zeynep Coban, Fred Cudhea, Lauren Hund, Shuli Li, Jessica Minnier, Layla Parast , Alejandro Quiroz Zarate, Anna Snavely, Alisa Stephens, and Dave Zhao received Master of Arts degrees. We wish our graduates much success in the future!

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