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Vanderbilt Biostatistics at SMI 2023

cullumm — Tue, 23 May 2023 21:21:28 +0000

Vanderbilt Biostatistics at SMI 2023 cullumm Tue, 05/23/2023 - 16:21 RSS:

Margaret Cullum, associate program manager

The 2023 Statistical Methods in Imaging Conference took place this week in Minneapolis. Investigators and students from around the country gathered to discuss and share their work in the field of imaging science. We are proud of our department members who presented at the conference. They include the following:

Monday, May 22

PhD student Jiangmei “Ruby” Xiong presented a poster for “Application of Closed-Form Gamma Mixture Model in mxIF Cell Gating.” Assistant professor Simon Vandekar co-authored the poster.

Tuesday, May 23

Simon Vandekar was an organizer for the invited session “New Statistical Methods to Improve the Spatial-Omics Analysis Pipeline.”

Simon was also a session organizer for “Collaborative Case Study: Statistical Methods and Findings from Large Consortia Studies.” PhD student Kaidi Kang was an invited speaker in the session and presented “Study Features Impacting Replicability of Brain-wide Association Studies.”

Assistant professor Panpan Zhang was an invited speaker in the session “Recent Advances in Neuroimaging Statistics for Investigating Human Brain Function.” He presented “A Bayesian Model for Link Prediction in Functional Brain Networks.”

Wednesday, May 24

Ruby Xiong was a session organizer for “Recent Advances in Spatial Analysis of Single-Cell Imaging.” Assistant professor Siyuan Ma was an invited speaker during this session and presented “A Flexible Generalized Linear Mixed Effects Model for Testing Cell-Cell Colocalization in Spatial Immunofluorescent Data.”

Congratulations to everyone!

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Registration is open for the 2023 Summer Institute

duthiep — Fri, 05 May 2023 23:27:09 +0000

Registration is open for the 2023 Summer Institute duthiep Fri, 05/05/2023 - 18:27 RSS:

Peg Duthie, senior program manager

For the first time since 2019, the Center for Quantitative Sciences will host its annual Summer Institute in person, with four weeklong courses held on the Vanderbilt University campus, at 2525 West End Avenue. This year’s offerings include a brand-new course on the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program, a large-scale initiative with the mission of building “one of the most diverse health databases in history.” Vanderbilt graduate and All of Us CEO Josh Denny, MD, was a founding director of Vanderbilt’s Center for Precision Medicine and a longtime collaborator with course directors Paul Harris, PhD, and Qingxia “Cindy” Chen, PhD. Harris, professor of biomedical informatics, biomedical engineering, and biostatistics, is the creator of REDCap and ResearchMatch and principal investigator of All of Us’s Data and Research Center (DRC). Chen, whose roles include vice chair of education for the Department of Biostatistics, is an All of Us investigator and an executive leader on the Summer Institute team.

“Introduction to the All of Us Research Program” will take place July 17–21 from 1 to 4 p.m., with 7 hours of lectures and 4 two-hour labs where participants will be guided through hands-on exercises with survey, electronic health record (EHR), genetic, and mobile health (Fitbit) data. DRC members will join Harris and Chen to provide practical tips and insights on using All of Us Workbench tools.

The morning course (9 a.m.–noon) the week of July 17–21 will be “Regression and Modeling in R,” taught by research assistant professor of biostatistics Gustavo Amorim, PhD. Amorim has previously led three- and four-day bootcamps and workshops in R in Mozambique and online. He is also first author of a Journal of the Royal Statistical Society paper that made use of Vanderbilt Comprehensive Care Clinic data and won the 2022 Methods Publication Award in the Department of Biostatistics.

The second week of the Summer Institute (July 24–28) will feature two core offerings: “Big Data in Biomedical Research,” taught by Qi Liu, PhD, associate professor of biostatistics and biomedical informatics, and Yu Shyr, PhD, professor of biostatistics, biomedical informatics, and health policy, and “Introduction to Causal Inference,” taught by Andrew Spieker, PhD, assistant professor of biostatistics. Led by award-winning instructors, these well-reviewed short courses provide participants with an abundance of materials to assist them with real-world data analysis beyond the classroom. “Big Data in Biomedical Research” has been an Institute course since 2015, and “Introduction to Causal Inference” since 2019, with the 2021 and 2022 editions delivered online.

Tuition for each course is $700 for VU/VUMC faculty and staff, and $450 for VU/VUMC students, trainees, and postdocs, with a 20% discount on registrations received before June 1. Parking and food are included, with continental breakfast for morning course participants and boxed lunches for all. Space in the All of Us course is limited to 30 participants. To learn more about each course and to enroll, visit the Summer Institute webpage.

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International Women's Day 2023

duthiep — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 22:18:04 +0000

International Women's Day 2023 duthiep Wed, 03/08/2023 - 16:18 RSS:

Peg Duthie, senior program manager

In observation of International Women's Day 2023, here's a view of our department:

Visit the Our People section of this site to learn more about our department members.

TOP ROW: senior associate Yuwei Zhu, PhD student Siwei Zhang, quality assurance analyst Vinni Yenukonda, professor Fei Ye, PhD student Elisa Yazdani, MS student Lydia Yao, postdoc Jing Yang, PhD student Yan Yan, PhD student Bailu Lucy Yan, lead biostatistician Meng Xu
ROW 2: biostatistician Ke Xu, PhD student Jiangmei Ruby Xiong, research professor Pingsheng Wu, application developer Hui Wu, PhD student Julia Whitman, PhD student Valerie Welty, PhD student Hannah Weeks, lead biostatistician Li Wang, research assistant professor Jing Wang, chief business officer Janey Wang
ROW 3: PhD student Shengxin Tu, PhD student Julia Thome, health services research analyst Afan Swan, PhD student Tianyi Sun, senior biostatistician Lili Sun, associate program manager Kayla Sullivan, program manager Cierra Streeter, biostatistician Tess Stopczynski, biostatistician Ine Sohn, adjunct instructor Ayumi Shintani
ROW 4: lead biostatistician Yaping Shi, PhD student Lan Shi, research assistant professor Laurie Samuels, biostatistician Paridhi Ranadive, statistical genetic analyst III Marisol Ramirez-Solano, associate professor Rameela Raman, senior biostatistician Heather Prigmore, associate Sharon Phillips, lead biostatistician Amy Perkins, research associate professor Jackie Pennings, biostatistician Rebecca Owens, application developer Savannah Obregon
ROW 5: assistant in biostatistics Hui Nian, educational programs manager Chazlie Miller
ROW 6: senior biostatistician Elizabeth McNeer, associate biostatistician Cara Lwin, associate professor Qi Liu, assistant professor Jinyuan Liu, associate professor Dandan Liu, adjoint assistant professor Pei-Ying Emily Lin, biostatistician Yajing Li, postdoc Jia Li, PhD student Lisa Levoir, senior program manager Jess Lai
ROW 7: MS student Yeji Ko, PhD student Jamie Joseph, MS student Megan Taylor Jones, biostatistician Cassie Johnson, biostatistician Xiangyu Ji, lead biostatistician Cathy Jenkins, research assistant professor Li-Ching Huang, senior financial analyst Sandra Hewston, biostatistician Cassie Hennessy, assistant in biostatistics Kim Hart
ROW 8: MS student Megan Hall, assistant professor Amber Hackstadt, business process manager Nicole Gunnison, senior associate Tebeb Gebretsadik, VICTR associate director Cheryl L. Gatto, biostatistician Yue Gao, PhD student Alexis Fleming, research professor Irene Feurer, senior biostatistician Xiaoke Sarah Feng, principal biostatistician Run Fan, health services research analyst Andrea Elhajj
ROW 9: research assistant professor Svetlana Eden, senior program manager Peg Duthie, research assistant professor Liping Du, PhD student Chiara Di Gravio, professor Mary Dietrich, associate program manager Margaret Cullum, grants manager Pattie Council, vice chair of diversity and inclusion Leena Choi, research assistant professor Sheau-Chiann Chen, vice chair of education Qingxia Cindy Chen
ROW 10: research associate professor Heidi Chen, PhD student Marisa Blackman, biostatistician Caroline Birdrow, project manager Heather Bickham, principal biostatistician Aihua Bian, vice chair of informatics and collaborative programs Lynne Berry, adjunct instructor Mary Banach, assistant to the chair Jena Altstatt, health services research analyst Onika Abrams

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Bill Dupont: 25 years with Vanderbilt MPH

duthiep — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 19:55:26 +0000

Bill Dupont: 25 years with Vanderbilt MPH duthiep Fri, 11/18/2022 - 13:55 RSS:

Peg Duthie, senior program manager

During Reunion Weekend, on October 7, 2022, Vanderbilt's Master of Public Health program celebrated its 25th anniversary. Professor William Dupont was recognized for his 25 years of outstanding teaching in the program. (Earlier this year, Dr. Dupont's 45 years at the university were also highlighted.) Department members Yu Shyr and Yuwei Zhu were recipients of 10-Year Teaching Awards.

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WSDS 2022

duthiep — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 17:46:11 +0000

WSDS 2022 duthiep Thu, 10/13/2022 - 12:46 RSS:

Peg Duthie, communications manager

The 2022 Women in Statistics and Data Science Conference was hosted by the American Statistical Association in St. Louis from October 6 through October 8. Participants associated with our department included the following:

Sarah Lotspeich (a graduate of our PhD program), presenting author of "One size fits all: A generalized algorithm to fitting GLMs with censored predictors in R" and chair of "Celebrating our Knowledge"

Tess Stopczynski (biostatistician), presenting author of "Handling limit of detection values for sepsis biomarkers in neonates," co-authored by senior associate (Gregory) Dan Ayers, with Jörn-Hendrik Weitkamp from the Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology and Inflammation

Tianyi Sun (PhD student), presenting author of "Submodel approximation under preconditioning outcome approach." Co-authored by associate professor Dandan Liu.

Congratulations to all!

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Vanderbilt Biostatistics Bulletin - October 2022 issue

duthiep — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 19:15:23 +0000

Vanderbilt Biostatistics Bulletin - October 2022 issue duthiep Wed, 10/05/2022 - 14:15 RSS:

Peg Duthie, communications manager

The October 2022 issue of our department newsletter is now available. We have so much to celebrate, and we're looking forward to sharing more good news in the weeks to come!

Front page of the October 2022 Biostatistics Bulletin.
Click "available" to view or download the full issue.

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Service Milestones

duthiep — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 07:04:41 +0000

Service Milestones duthiep Wed, 09/28/2022 - 02:04 RSS:

Peg Duthie, communications manager

We are so pleased to recognize the following milestones for members of our faculty and staff:

	Years at Vanderbilt University Medical Center
William D. Dupont, professor	45
Fei Ye, professor	15
Li Wang, lead biostatistician	15
Chris Slaughter, associate professor	15
Sharon E. Phillips, associate in biostatistics	15
Samuel Nwosu, lead biostatistician	15
Mario Davidson, assistant professor	15
Bob Johnson, associate professor	10
Derek K. Smith, assistant professor	5
Quanhu "Tiger" Sheng, assistant professor	5
Laurie Samuels, research assistant professor	5
Chris Lindsell, professor	5
Omair A. Khan, senior biostatistician	5
Jenny Jones, assistant to the chair	5

Bill Dupont

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Vanderbilt Biostatistics at JSM 2022

duthiep — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 18:08:08 +0000

Vanderbilt Biostatistics at JSM 2022 duthiep Wed, 08/03/2022 - 13:08 RSS:

Peg Duthie, communications manager

The 2022 Joint Statistical Meetings, which begin this Saturday, August 6, are expected to bring together more than six thousand attendees from over fifty countries. We are proud of the department members and alumni who will be sharing their work in Washington, DC, next week. They include the following:

Sunday, August 7

At 2:00 p.m., in session 9, assistant professor Simon Vandekar will present an invited paper, "Cell Normalization and Phenotyping for Multiplexed Single-Cell Imaging," that he co-authored with recent PhD graduate Coleman Harris (now at Nashville Biosciences) and current PhD student Jiangmei Ruby Xiong.

Also at 2:00 p.m., in session 23, associate professor Benjamin French will present his topic contributed paper, "Statistical Analysis of Atomic Bomb Survivor Data: Challenges and Opportunities." This session will also feature "Evaluation of Sources of Bias in Time-Dependent Radiation Dose Response Models for Individual Cohorts and Challenges Associated with Pooling in the Million Worker Study," which French co-authored with colleagues in Oak Ridge and Yeji Ko, a student in our MS program.

At 4:00 p.m., in session 37, assistant professor Andrew Spieker will present an invited paper, "A Semiparametric G-Computation Approach Based on Cumulative Probability Models," that he co-authored with biostatistician Caroline Birdrow (a graduate of our MS program) and professor Bryan Shepherd. Shepherd co-authored two papers in the session:

Monday, August 8

At 8:30 a.m., session 90 will feature invited papers on "Dealing with Error-Prone Electronic Health Record Data via Validation Sampling," with Bryan Shepherd as organizer and chair. He co-authored "Advantages of Multi-Wave, Multi-Frame Sampling Designs for Analysis of Error-Prone Data from Electronic Health Records," which will be presented by Pamela Shaw from Kaiser Permanente, and "Implementing an Optimal Multi-Wave Validation Design in a Multi-National HIV Research Cohort," which will be presented by research assistant professor Gustavo Amorim.

Also at 8:30 a.m., assistant professor Jinyuan Liu will be chairing session 109, which will feature six contributed papers on "Innovative Approaches in Biomarkers Discovery and Subgroup Analyses."

At 10:30 a.m., in the Mental Health Statistics Section's poster session, PhD candidate Kaidi Kang will present a poster, "Accurate Confidence Interval Estimation for Non-Centrality Parameters and Effect Size Indices," co-authored with five other Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers: Kristan Armstrong, Suzanne Avery, Maureen McHugo, Stephan Heckers, and Simon Vandekar.

At 2:00 p.m., the Statistics in Imaging Section showcases its student paper winners, in a session organized and chaired by Simon Vandekar.

The Biometrics Section is likewise featuring early-career paper winners at 2:00 p.m., in a session chaired by Andrew Spieker.

Tuesday, August 9

At 8:30 a.m., a paper co-authored by professor Qingxia (Cindy) Chen, "Estimation of Treatment Effects and Model Diagnostics with Two-Way, Time-Varying Treatment Switching," will be presented in the topic contributed session on "Statistical Considerations for Adjusting Overall Survival in Randomized Trials with Treatment Switching."

At 10:30 a.m., another topic contributed session sponsored by the Biopharmaceutical Section will include "Testing and Estimating Treatment Effect in the Presence of Delayed Onset of the Effect for Cancer Immunotherapies," a paper co-authored by Hui Nian, assistant in biostatistics and orthopedic surgery.

At 2:00 p.m., session 312, "What We Know About What We Don't Know: Overcoming Incomplete Data in Practice," will be chaired by Sarah C. Lotspeich, a graduate of our doctoral program who's now an assistant professor in the new Department of Statistical Sciences at Wake Forest University. The invited papers in this session include "Missing Data in the Baseline Health Surveys of the All of Us Research Program and the Opportunity from Multiple Information Sources," which will be presented by Cindy Chen; her collaborators include biostatistician Xiaoke (Sarah) Feng and assistant Shawn Garbett.

Wednesday, August 9

At 2:00 p.m., in session 488, Jiangmei Ruby Xiong will present a contributed paper titled "Faster Estimation for Constrained Gamma Mixture Models Using Closed-Forms Estimators." The paper was co-authored by Simon Vandekar and an array of prominent School of Medicine scientists.

Congratulations and safe travels to all!

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Founding chair appointed to FDA

duthiep — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 16:35:27 +0000

Founding chair appointed to FDA duthiep Tue, 07/12/2022 - 11:35 RSS:

The FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) has appointed Dr. Frank Harrell, professor of biostatistics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, as a senior biostatistics advisor to the Office of the Center Director under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) Mobility Program. CDER’s mission is to protect and promote public health by helping to ensure that human drugs are safe and effective for their intended use, meet established quality standards, and available to patients.

Under this appointment, Harrell will serve as a senior advisor to CDER on innovative and novel models for biostatistical analysis to facilitate the regulatory drug review in therapeutic areas with underserved populations or unmet medical needs. Harrell will advise the center on advanced approaches to drug regulatory pathways, optimization of regulatory science models, and complex statistical analysis methodologies and clinical trial designs.

The IPA Mobility Program provides for the temporary assignment of personnel between the federal government and state and local governments, colleges and universities, Indian tribal governments, federally funded research and development centers, and other eligible organizations. The program is a critical tool that allows federal agencies to access academicians or clinical experts on a part-time basis to bolster existing or new initiatives.

Harrell previously served as an advisor to the FDA CDER Office of Biostatistics from 2016 to 2020 and has been a long-time consultant to the FDA. "I am excited to serve in this important role at the request of the CDER director as part of my VUMC appointment, and look forward to contributing to making clinical trials more efficient and flexible, as well as to fostering development of statistical methods to analyze new types of patient outcomes in therapeutic clinical trials. My last two years of working with my Vanderbilt biostatistics and VICTR colleagues on the design and analysis of many high-profile Vanderbilt-led COVID-19 clinical trials has given me experience and ideas that I plan to put into use at FDA."

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Celebrating our first VBSIUU cohort

duthiep — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 23:22:19 +0000

Celebrating our first VBSIUU cohort duthiep Thu, 07/07/2022 - 18:22 RSS:

Peg Duthie, communications manager

Left to right: Leena Choi, Akshat Vasisht, Mary Guirguis, Rajala Bean

On Friday, July 1, the Vanderbilt Biostatistics Summer Internship for Underrepresented Undergraduates program celebrated the conclusion of its inaugural season with presentations by its participants. The above photograph (by department chair Yu Shyr) shows them in front of scientific posters about the research they performed. Mary Guirguis and Akshat Vasisht investigated "Reproducibility and Quality Control for Combination Drug Screening" in collaboration with PhD student Elisa Yazdani and faculty mentor Amir Asiaee. Raja Bean focused on "SEPSIGN: early identification of SEPsis SIGNs in emergency department" in collaboration with faculty mentor Chris Lindsell and biostatistician Cassie Hennessy.

In addition to conducting research and attending classes on statistics and computing, the interns received professional development training from staff and faculty on topics such as writing CVs, resumes, and personal statements; creating statistical reports, posters, and oral presentations; and preparing for interviews. The program also featured lunches with department members. It was headed by Leena Choi, professor of biostatistics and vice chair of diversity and inclusion.

Bean expects to receive her bachelor's degree in health sciences in Spring 2023; in addition to her school and work commitments, she is active with Love You Like a Sister, Alpha Kappa Alpha, ThriftSmart (a Nashville store whose proceeds benefit African Leadership, the Belize Project, Mercy Community Healthcare, and New Hope Academy), and Nashville General Hospital's Food Tote Delivery program. Guirguis is a computer science student at Middle Tennessee State University; her experiences include working as a pharmacy technician at Polaris, programming a virtual reality horror project during MTSU's hackathon, and volunteering for Second Harvest. Vasisht, from Brentwood High School, is an aspiring software engineer, an American Red Cross ambassador, and a teen board member and volunteer with the John P. Holt Brentwood Library.

The internship information page will be updated when the application period for the 2023 program is about to open.

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Vanderbilt Biostatistics Bulletin - May 2022 issue

duthiep — Tue, 03 May 2022 13:41:45 +0000

Vanderbilt Biostatistics Bulletin - May 2022 issue duthiep Tue, 05/03/2022 - 08:41 RSS:

Peg Duthie, communications manager

The May 2022 issue of our department newsletter is now available. We have upcoming events, incoming faculty, and recent honors to celebrate!

Front page of the May 2022 Biostatistics Bulletin. Click "available" to view or download the full issue.

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May 16 Symposium on Implementation Research in the Learning Health System

duthiep — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 15:57:22 +0000

May 16 Symposium on Implementation Research in the Learning Health System duthiep Tue, 04/19/2022 - 10:57 RSS:

Peg Duthie - communications manager

Here are new and updated details about the upcoming Vanderbilt Symposium on Implementation Research in the Learning Health System.

The planning committee includes professor Chris Lindsell and research assistant professor Cheryl L. Gatto.

Symposium registration: https://redcap.link/IRLHSregistration2022

Abstract submission for poster reception: https://redcap.link/IRLHSpostersubmission2022

Project proposal submission for workshop: https://redcap.link/IRLHSworkshopsubmission2022

Cash prizes will be awarded to the best poster submissions (due April 29).

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Yu Shyr inducted into AACR Academy

duthiep — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 07:58:42 +0000

Yu Shyr inducted into AACR Academy duthiep Mon, 04/04/2022 - 02:58 RSS:

https://news.vumc.org/2022/03/22/vumcs-pietenpol-shyr-named-aacr-fellows/

AACR Fellows, class of 2022. Yu Shyr is third from left in the front row.

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In celebration of Women's History Month

duthiep — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 02:07:14 +0000

In celebration of Women's History Month duthiep Thu, 03/24/2022 - 21:07 RSS:

Peg Duthie, communications manager

Visit the Our People section of this site to learn more about our department members.

TOP ROW: senior associate Yuwei Zhu, PhD student Siwei Zhang, associate quality assurance analyst Vinni Yenukonda, associate professor Fei Ye, PhD student Elisa Yazdani, MS student Lydia Yao, postdoc Jing Yang, PhD student Yan Yan, PhD student Bailu (Lucy) Yan, principal biostatistician Meng Xu

ROW 2: PhD student Jiangmei Xiong, research professor Pingsheng Wu, application developer Hui Wu, PhD student Julia Whitman, PhD student Valerie Welty, adjunct professor Liping Wei, PhD student Hannah Weeks, lead biostatistician Li Wang, research assistant professor Jing Wang, chief business officer Janey Wang

ROW 3: biostatistician Guanchao Wang, PhD student Shengxin Tu, PhD student Yuqi Tian, PhD student Julia Thome, MS student Megan Taylor, health services research analyst Afan Swan, PhD student Tianyi Sun, biostatistician Lili Sun, associate program manager Cierra Streeter

ROW 4: biostatistician Tess Stopczynski, biostatistician Ine Sohn, PhD student Elizabeth Sigworth, adjunct instructor Ayumi Shintani, lead biostatistician Yaping Shi, PhD student Lan Shi, research assistant professor Laurie Samuels, biostatistician Paridhi Ranadive, associate professor Rameela Raman, statistical genetic analyst III Marisol Ramirez-Solano, senior biostatistician Heather Prigmore

ROW 5: associate Sharon Phillips, principal biostatistician Amy Perkins, application developer Savannah Obregon, associate Huin Nian, PhD student Jacquelyn Neal, PhD student Megan Hollister Murray, educational programs manager Chazlie Miller, senior biostatistician Elizabeth McNeer, PhD student Cara Lwin, associate professor Qi Liu

ROW 6: associate professor Dandan Liu, adjoint assistant professor Pei Ying (Emily) Lin, biostatistician Yaping Li, postdoc Jia Li, MS student Yeji Ko, senior biostatistician Ahra Kim, PhD student Jamie Joseph, assistant to the chair Jenny Jones, biostatistician Xiangyu Ji, lead biostatistician Cathy Jenkins

ROW 7: biostatistician Rebecca Irlmeier, research assistant professor Li-Ching Huang, senior financial analyst Sandra Hewston, biostatistician Cassie Hennessy, principal biostatistician Kim Hart, biostatistician Alese Halvorson, assistant professor Amber Hackstadt, budget/accounting analyst Nicole Gunnison, senior associate Tebeb Gebretsadik, VICTR associate director Cheryl L. Gatto, biostatistician Yue Gao

ROW 8: research professor Irene Feurer, biostatistician Xiaoke (Sarah) Feng, principal biostatistician Run Fan, research assistant professor Svetlana Eden, communications manager Peg Duthie, assistant Liping Du, PhD student Chiara Di Gravio, professor Mary Dietrich, grants manager Pattie Council, MS student Kirsten Cottingham, vice chair of diversity and inclusion Leena Choi

ROW 9: research assistant professor Sheau-Chiann Chen, director of post-graduate studies and distance learning Qingxia (Cindy) Chen, research assistant professor Heidi Chen, administrative manager Audrey Carvajal, PhD student Marisa Blackman, biostatistician Caroline Birdrow, principal biostatistician Aihua Bian, vice chair of informatics and collaborative programs Lynne Berry, adjunct instructor Mary Banach, associate program manager Jena Altstatt

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May 16 Implementation Research Symposium

duthiep — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 05:27:06 +0000

May 16 Implementation Research Symposium duthiep Wed, 03/23/2022 - 00:27 RSS:

Peg Duthie, communications manager

Note: this blog post has been superseded by the April 19 update about symposium opportunities.

***

Vanderbilt Center for Clinical Quality and Implementation Research and the Vanderbilt CTSA/VICTR Learning Healthcare System are co-sponsoring an in-person symposium on May 16. More details are forthcoming. The planning committee includes professor Chris Lindsell and research assistant professor Cheryl L. Gatto, and there will be a poster session (submissions welcome through April 25; see the symposium webpage for guidelines).

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Health & Wellness

duthiep — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 04:05:53 +0000

Health & Wellness duthiep Mon, 03/21/2022 - 23:05 RSS:

Peg Duthie, communications manager

Spring has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. To quote the poet Tennyson, "In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove." (The state flower of Tennessee is the iris.)

Spring is also a great time to set new self-care goals. The Department of Biostatistics has a long-standing relationship with Vanderbilt's Health & Wellness initiative. Senior associate Dan Byrne helped create the award-winning Go for the Gold program in 2003, and with biostatistician Ryan Moore provides support for "The Healthy Pulse," a feature that appears on the back page of each issue of Connection, which is mailed to all Vanderbilt employees.

Healthy Pulse graphic from the February issue, created by Daniel Byrne and Ryan Moore. Republished here with permission from Health & Wellness.

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Spotlight on Samuel Nwosu and Jubilee Tan

duthiep — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 21:40:05 +0000

Spotlight on Samuel Nwosu and Jubilee Tan duthiep Fri, 03/18/2022 - 16:40 RSS:

Peg Duthie, communications manager

Lead biostatistician Samuel Nwosu was featured in the March 17 issue of the ACTIV-6 Site Newsletter, and application developer Jubilee Tan in the March 4 edition. The interviews are republished here with permission of the Duke Clinical Research Institute.

Data Coordinating Center Spotlights

Samuel Nwosu

What is your role on ACTIV-6?

Provide assistance with data management, create trial summary reports, perform data validations, and help with implementing the trial's interim analyses.

What activities or hobbies do you enjoy outside of work?

I enjoy spending time with my family, a good jog, and the occasional adventurous/extreme activity.

Why do you think ACTIV-6 is important?

This trial is at the forefront to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and provide a pathway to ending this global pandemic.

What drives and motivates you about working on the ACTIV-6 study?

Knowing that the work I do is part of a bigger community to assist in the fight against COVID-19. Hopefully my effort within the ACTIV-6 study will help everyone get back to some sense of normalcy

Jubilee Tan

What is your role on ACTIV-6?

I maintain and upgrade automated information systems among four roles: participants, pharmacy, the call center, and biometric analysts.

What activities or hobbies do you enjoy outside of work?

When I get off work, I usually spend time with family, watch movies, and fix some issues in open source community.

Why do you think ACTIV-6 is important?

Since COVID changed our lives two years ago, many families may have faced a very big change, not only the loss of life, but also social distancing and economic shock. This project is an opportunity to turn things around so that people can go back to life before the pandemic.

What drives and motivates you about working on the ACTIV-6 study?

This project is about helping people fight COVID, and I feel very motivated every time I think about this work that could lead to an earlier end to the pandemic.

The ACTIV-6 study is reaching out to prospective participants in Spanish as well as English.

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Vanderbilt Biostatistics Bulletin - February 2022 issue

duthiep — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 21:31:39 +0000

Vanderbilt Biostatistics Bulletin - February 2022 issue duthiep Tue, 02/22/2022 - 15:31 RSS:

Peg Duthie, communications manager

The February 2022 issue of our department newsletter is now available. We are excited about our recent accomplishments and upcoming events.

Note: the application deadline for the Vanderbilt Biostatistics Summer Internship for Underrepresented Undergraduates has been extended to March 14, and the due date for useR! abstracts is now March 15.

Front page of the February 2022 issue. Click "available" to view or download the full issue.

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Spotlight on Chris Lindsell

duthiep — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 04:44:22 +0000

Spotlight on Chris Lindsell duthiep Sun, 02/13/2022 - 22:44 RSS:

Peg Duthie, communications manager

Professor Chris Lindsell, who leads the ACTIV-6 Data Coordinating Center, was featured in the February 11 issue of the ACTIV-6 Site Newsletter, which is published twice a month by Duke Clinical Research Institute. The interview is republished here with permission.

What is your role on ACTIV-6? I am privileged to lead the Data Coordinating Center. Our team has developed an innovative way of running studies by using the research record like the medical record. The data we collect includes a mix of the information we need to find out what medicines help patients feel better faster, and all of the data needed for real time study information sharing and communications. The partnership with DCRI has allowed us to create a fully integrated system that will continue to get better as we learn from this new way of doing studies.

What activities or hobbies do you enjoy outside of work? I used to play rugby, but then I blew out my knees. Then I used to sail, but there isn’t much water in Nashville. I took up gardening but my brown thumb left me with little hope. For a while, I was a craft beer brewer and home vintner, which also had bad side effects. Pandemic isolation gave me a whole new lease on life and I got to teach myself the guitar while smoking bacon, chicken, salmon, turkey, brisket, cheese, bread, and even vegetables. This year I plan to master the art of pastry (or patience, or both).

Why do you think ACTIV-6 is important? If there is a safe medicine already available that could help people feel better faster from Covid-19, I want to know that, I think that’s important.

What drives and motivates you about working on the ACTIV-6 study? The challenge of finding a way to do research in totally different ways and solving the problem of what medicines help people feel better faster drives me. The passion, dedication, and excellence of the teams that are leading this research motivate me.

Christopher Lindsell on ACTIV-6

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Spotlight on Savannah Obregon

duthiep — Fri, 28 Jan 2022 23:45:07 +0000

Spotlight on Savannah Obregon duthiep Fri, 01/28/2022 - 17:45 RSS:

Peg Duthie, communications manager

Application developer Savannah Obregon was featured in the January 28 issue of the ACTIV-6 Site Newsletter, which is published twice a month by Duke Clinical Research Institute. Her contributions to the study range from front-end presentations to back-end programming, including displays of study data on the Support Site landing page, the site's FAQ, the creation of a back-up server for emergency randomization, and auto-generating alerts. As stated in the issue, "her work is invaluable to site enrollment and the smooth operation of the study as a whole."

To date, the ACTIV-6 research study has enrolled more than three thousand participants. To learn more about the quest to help people with COVID-19 feel better faster, visit activ6study.org.

(Spotlight republished here with permission.)

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