Alumni
Recent Graduates
Spring 2022
Fall 2021
Tara Kligner
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania
Dissertation Advisor: Elizabeth Lowenthal, MD, MSCE
Preparing for Use of a Computerized Battery to Identify Neurocognitive Impairments Among Children and Adolescents Affected by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus in Botswana
Summer 2021
Amelia van Pelt
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania
Dissertation Advisor: Elizabeth Lowenthal, MD, MSCE
Preparing for Use of a Computerized Battery to Identify Neurocognitive Impairments Among Children and Adolescents Affected by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus in Botswana
Darcy Ellis
Epidemiologist, CSL Behring
Dissertation Advisor: Sean Hennessy, PhD, PharmD
"Neurologic and Metabolic Safety of Fluoroquinolones"
Spring 2021
Jessica Meeker
Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer, CDC
Dissertation Advisor: Mary Regina Boland, PhD
"Investigating the Effect of Individual-Level and Neighborhood-Level Exposures on Delivery Outcomes"
Sherrie Xie
VMD student, University of Pennsylvania
Dissertation Advisor: Blanca Himes, PhD
"Investigating the Effect of Individual-Level and Neighborhood-Level Exposures on Delivery Outcomes"
Fall 2020
Summer 2020
Sondra Lavigne
VMD student, University of Pennsylvania
Dissertation Advisor: Theoklis Zaoutis, MD, MSCE
"AntiMicrobial Use and Resistance: Intersections of Companion Animal and Public Health"
Fall 2019
M. Elle Saine
MD Student, University of Pennsylvania
Dissertation Advisor: Vincent Lo Re, MD, MSCE
"Measuring Disease-Related Stigma Among Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C Virus Infection"
Tirza Calderone
Epidemiology Manager, GlazoSmithKline
Dissertation Advisors: Alison Buttenheim, PhD, MBA & Kristen Feemster, MD, MPH, MSHP
"Addressing Disparities in Pertussis Epidemiology"
Summer 2019
Todd Miano
Instructor of Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania
Dissertation Advisor: Sean Hennessy, PharmD, PhD
"Drug-Drug Interactions and Kidney Disease in Hospitalized Patients"
Alexis Zebrowski
Research Assistant Professor, Thomas Jefferson University
Dissertation Advisor: Douglas Wiebe, PhD
"Intensity of Care and the Injured Older Adult: Measurement, Variability, and Outcomes Using Medicare Claims Data"
Meijia Zhou
Manager, Johnson & Johnson
Dissertation Advisor: Sean Hennessy, PharmD, PhD
"Identifying Signals of Potential Drug-Drug Interactions Involving Oral Anticoagulants Using Real World Clinical Data"
Fall 2018
Audrey Blewer
Assistant Professor, Duke University
Benjamin S. Abella, MD, MPhil
"Bystander Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation: Training, Delivery, and Measurement Error"
May 2016
Justin Brown
"The Courage Trial: A Phase II Randomized Clinical Trial to Evaluate the Dose-Response Effects of Exercise on Prognostic Biomarkers Among Colon Cancer Survivors"\
Anne Grossestruer
Assistant Professor, Harvard University
Dissertation Advisor: Benjamin S. Abella, MD, MPhil
"Sudden Cardiac Arrest: Novel Uses of Risk Standardization and Post-Arrest Body Temperature to Improve Outcomes"
December 2016
Michael O. Harhay
"Endpoints in Intensive Care Unit Based Randomized Clinical Trials"
Alison J. Culyba
"Role of Adult Connection in Violence Prevention Among Male Youth During Daily Activity"
May 2015
Nikkita Patel
"Characterization of Illegal Wildlife Trade Networks"
Shannon Lynch
"Neighborhood Cancerization: New approaches Linking Social and Biological Mechanisms of Cancer"
Brian Finkelman
"Prediction in Therapeutic Effectiveness Research: Prolonged Dose Titration among Warfarin Patients and Model Transportability"
Heather de Vries-McClintock
"Adherence to oral hypoglycemic agents: patterns, correlates and outcomes"
May 2014
Laurel Redding
"Understanding the Use of Antibiotics on Small Dairy Farms in Rural Peru"
May 2013
Sydney Brown
"The Epidemiology of Readmissions to the Intensive Care Unit and Its Use as a Quality Indicator"
December 2013
Meenakashi Bewtra
"Dying to Save Your Colon? Changing the Way We Look at Ulverative Colitis"
Pinyo Rattanaumpawan
"Risk Factors for and Impact of Ambulatory Urinary Tract Infections Caused by High MIC-Fluoroquinoline Susceptible E. coli in Women"
December 2012
Rebecca Speck
“Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy in Non-Metastatic Breast Cancer: Patient Experience and Clinical Impact”
May 2011
Richard Aplenc
“Pharmacogenetic and Pharmacogenomic Studies in Pediatric Leukemia”
Huaqing Zhao
“Analyzing Population Based Genetic Association Studies with Propensity Score Approach"
August 2010
Sharon Meropol
“Evaluating Risks from Antibacterial Medication Therapy Using an Observational Primary Care Database"
December 2010
Christopher Rowan
“Clinical Importance of the Drug Interaction Between Statins and CYP3A4 Inhibitors”
Where do Biostatistics graduates go? Many go on, either directly or following a postdoctoral position, to academic careers. Others play a major role in biotechnology, pharmaceutical companies or government. Training in biostatistics can prepare you for many other walks of life. Below is a list of our recent graduates and their accomplishments.
Fall 2023
Summer 2023
Benny Ren
Assistant Professor, Stony Brook University
Dissertation Advisor: Ian Barnett, PhD and Jeff Morris, PhD
Spring 2023
Francesca Mandel
Mathematical Statistician, Food & Drug Administration
Dissertation Advisor:
“Statistical Methods for Neural Networks”
Hayley Locke
Dissertation Advisor: Sharon Xie, PhD
"Missing Data and Measurement Error Methods for Left-Truncated Survival Data"
Kenneth Locke, Jr.
Principle Statistician, Glaxo Smith Kline
Dissertation Advisors: Yong Chen, PhD, and Richard J. Landis, PhD
"Preserving Patient Privacy in Modeling Multi-Category Outcomes across Real-World Data Sources"
Rebecca Deek
Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh
Dissertation Advisor: Hongzhe Lee, PhD
"Statistical Methods for Modeling Complex Dependency Structures in Zero-inflated Metagenomic Sequencing Data"
Andrew Chen
Assistant Professor, Medical University of South Carolina
Dissertation Advisors: Haochang Shou, PhD and Russell Shinohara, PhD
"Novel Methods for Statistical Analysis of Covariance Structures"
Danni Tu
Data Scientist, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals
Dissertation Advisor: Russell Shinohara, PhD
"Statistical and Machine Learning Methods for Neuroimaging and Neurocognitive Data"
Sarah Weinstein
Assistant Professor, Temple University
Dissertation Advisors: Kristin Linn, PhD and Russell Shinohara, PhD
"Statistical Methods for Extracting and Comparing Patterns in Multimodal Neuroimaging Studies"
Haotian Zheng
Senior Biostatistician II, Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Dissertation Advisor: Hongzhe Lee, PhD
"Transfer Learning in Classification and Regression with Summary Statistics"
Fall 2022
Hannah Lindner
Statistician, Radiation Effects Research Foundation
"Statistical methods for the identification, evaluation, and classification of non-monotone biomarkers in case-control studies"
Dissertation Advisors: Warren Bilker, PhD and Phyllis Gimotty, PhD
Assistant Research Professor, Fox-Chase Cancer Center
Jill Schnall Hasler
Assistant Research Professor, Fox-Chase Cancer Center
Dissertation Advisor: Jinbo Chen, PhD
“Methods for Comparative Effectiveness Research with Real-World Data”
Summer 2022
Lillian Boe
Principal Biostatistician, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Dissertation Advisor: Pamela Shaw, PhD
“Statistical Approaches to Reducing Bias and Improving Variance Estimation in the Presence of Covariate and Outcome Measurement Error”
Carolyn Lou
Manager of Biostatistics, Pfizer
Dissertation Advisor: Russell Shinohara, PhD
“Statistical Methods for the Analysis and Development of Radiomic Predictors”
Spring 2022
Joanna Harton
Real-World Evidence Analytics Scientist, Genesis Research
Dissertation Advisor: Nandita Mitra, PhD, Rebecca Hubbard, PhD
“Methods for Comparative Effectiveness Research with Real-World Data”
Jian Hu
Assistant Professor, Tenure Track, Emory University
Dissertation Advisor: Mingyao Li, PhD
“Machine Learning Methods for the Analysis of Single-Cell and Spatially Resolved Transcriptomics Data”
Nicholas Illenberger
Assistant Professor, New York University
Dissertation Advisor: Nandita Mitra, PhD
“Causal Inference Methods for Joint Censored Cost and Effectiveness Outcomes”
Jianqiao Wang
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Harvard University
Dissertation Advisor: Hongzhe Lee, PhD
“Inference of shared genetic architecture with genome-wide association data”
Yaqian "Angela" Zhu
Senior Biostatistician, Johnson & Johnson
Dissertation Advisor: Nandita Mitra, PhD, Jason Roy, PhD
“Causal Inference Methods for Addressing Positivity Violations and Bias in Observational and Cluster-Randomized Studies”
Fall 2021
Justin Lakkis
Quantitative Researcher, Citadel
Dissertation Advisor: Mingyao Li, PhD
“Scalable Machine Learning Methods for the Analysis of Single-cell Transcriptomics and Multiomics Data”
Summer 2021
Victoria Arthur
DissertationAdvisor: Jinbo Chen, PhD
“Statistical Methods for Paired Transplant Genetic Data”
Mackenzie Edmondson
Senior Scientist, Merck & Co.
Dissertation Advisor: Yong Chen, PhD
“Privacy-Preserving Distributed Regression Algorithms for Analysis of Multi-Site Real-World Data”
Rong Ma
Postdoctoral Researcher, Stanford University
Dissertation Advisors: Hongzhe Lee, PhD and Tony Cai, PhD
“Problems in High-Dimensional Statistics with Applications in Genomics, Metabolomics, and Microbiomics”
Arielle Marks-Anglin
Human Services Researcher, Mathematica, Inc.
Dissertation Advisor: Yong Chen, PhD
“Methods for Bias Reduction in Evidence-Based Medicine"
Spring 2021
Arman Oganisian
Assistant Professor, Brown University
Dissertation Advisors: Nandita Mitra, PhD and Jason Roy, PhD
"Bayesian Nonparametric Models for Causal Inference and Clustering under Dirichlet Process Priors"
Fall 2020
Lu Huang
Machine Learning Scientist, Uber
Dissertation Advisor: Hongzhe Li, PhD
"Bayesian Balance Regression and Mediation Analysis for Microbiome Compositional Data"
Jiaxin Fan
Mathematical Statistician, FDA
Dissertation Advisor: Rui Xiao, PhD and Mingyao Li, PhD
"Statistical Methods for Allele-Specific Expression Analysis by RNA Sequencing"
Spring 2020
Alessandra Valcarcel
Statistical Scientist, Genentech
Dissertation Advisor: Russell Shinohara, PhD
"Statistical Methods for Multi-modal Image Analysis with Applications in Multiple Sclerosis and Neurodevelopment"
Lingjiao Zhang
Senior Biostatistician, Johnson and Johnson
Dissertation Advisor: Jinbo Chen, PhD
"Statistical Methods for Phenotyping with Positive-Only Electronica Health Record Data"
Eric Oh
Research Assistant Professor, University of Virginia
Dissertation Advisor: Pamela Shaw, PhD
"Statistical Approaches to Address Correlated Measurement Error in a Failure-Time Outcome and Covariates"
Rui Duan
Assistant Professor, Harvard University
Dissertation Advisor: Yong Chen, PhD
"EHR Data+X: Expanding the Reach of EHR Through Integration"
Jiarui Liu
Statistical Consultant, Novartis
Dissertation Advisor: Hongzhe Lee, PhD
"Statistical Inference for High Dimensional Models in Genomics and MicroBiome"
Jordan Dworkin
Assistant Professor, Columbia University
Dissertation Advisor: Russell Shinohara, PhD
"Statistical Techniques for Addressing the Clinico-radiological Paradox in Multiple Sclerosis"
Carrie Caswell
Principle Statistician, GlaxoSmithKline
Dissertation Advisor: Sharon Xie, PhD
"Measurement Error and Missing Data Methods in Biomarker Research"
Fall 2019
Wenli Sun
Dissertation Advisor: Qi Long, PhD
"Knowledge-guided Bayesian Support Vector Machine Methods for High-Dimensional Data with Application to Analysis of Genomics Data"
Summer 2019
Leah Suttner
Senior Scientist, Merck & Co.
Dissertation Advisor: Sharon Xie, PhD
"Statistical Methods for Analyzing the Electronic Health Records Data"
Lu Wang
Data Scientist, Adobe, Inc.
Dissertation Advisor: Jinbo Chen, PhD
"Statistical Methods for Censored and Missing Data in Survival and Longitudinal Analysis"
Spring 2019
Fall 2018
Summer 2018
Le Wang
Assistant Professor, Villanova University
Dissertation Advisor: Jinbo Chen, PhD
"Statistical Methods for Outcome-Dependent Sampling Designs"
Spring 2018
Yu Hu
Post-Doc, University of Pennsylvania
Dissertation Advisor: Mingyao Li, PhD
"Statistical Methods for Alternative Splicing Using RNA Sequencing"
Lior Rennert
Assistant Professor, Clemson University
Dissertation Advisor: Sharon Xie, PhD
"Statistical Methods for Truncated Survival Data"
Simon Vandekar
Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Dissertation Advisor: Russell Shinohara, PhD
"Hypothesis Testing Procedures for Neuroimaging"
Ruohui Chen (MS)
PhD Student, University of California San Diego
Thesis Advisor: Justine Shults, PhD
"Survival Benefit of Accepting Versus Turning Down Kidney Allograft Offers"
Shiyu Wang (MS)
Data Analyst, University of Pennsylvania
Thesis Advisor: Russell Shinohara, PhD
"Statistical Approaches for Longitudinal Brain Lesion Segmentation"
Summer 2017
Xinglei Chai
Associate, Analyst Group
Dissertation Advisor: Jinbo Chen, PhD
"Design and Analyses of Two-Phase Studies for Evaluating Biomarkers in Risk Prediction"
Cheng Jia
Data Scientist, Apple, Inc.
Dissertation Advisor: Mingyao Li, PhD
"Statistical Methods for Whole Transcriptome Sequencing: From Bulk Tissue to Single Cells"
Rengyi "Emily" Xu
Takeda Development Center Americas, Inc.
Dissertation Advisor: Pamela Shaw, PhD and Devan Mehrotra, PhD
"Methods for Survival Analysis in Small Samples"
Spring 2017
Erica Billig
Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Dissertation Advisor, Jaron Roy, PhD & Michael Levy, PhD
"Detecting and Controlling Insect Vectors in Urban Environments: Novel Bayesian Methods for Complex Spatial Data"
Thomas Jemielta
Senior Scientist, Merck & Co.
Dissertation Advisor: Mary Putt, PhD & Devan Mehrotra, PhD
"Efficient Baseline Utilization in Crossover Clinical Trials Through Linear Combinations of Baselines: Parametric, Nonparametric, and Model Selection Approaches"
Fall 2017
Bret Zedlow
Post-Doc, Harvard Medical School
Dissertation Advisor: Jason Roy, PhD
"Nonparametric Bayesian Methods in Causal Inference"
Summer 2016
Shaun Bender
Senior Biostatistician, Boehringer Ingelheim
Dissertation Advisor: Justine Shults, PhD
"Ignorability Conditions for Incomplete Data and the First Order Markov Conditional Linear Expectation Approach for Analysis of Longitudinal Discrete Data with Overdispension"
Daniel Shin
Research Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Dissertation Advisor: Russell Shinohara, PhD
"Novel Statistical Methodologies in Analysis of Position Emission Tomography Data: Applications in Segmentation, Normalization, and Trajectory Modeling"
Emin Tahirovic
Assistant Professor, University of Sarajevo
Dissertation Advisor: Andrew B. Troxel, PhD
"Sensitivity Analysis for Non-Ignorable Dropout of Marginal Treatment Effect in Longitudinal"
Spring 2016
Victoria Gamerman
Associate Director, Boehringer Ingelheim
Dissertation Advisor: Phyllis Gimotty, PhD & Justine Shults, PhD
"Statistical Methods for Time-Conditional Survival Probability and Equally Spaced Count Data"
Sidan He (MS)
Biostatistician, Target Health, Inc.
Thesis Advisor: Phyllis Gimotty, PhD
"Categorical predictors based on optimal cut points in regression modeling: Evaluation of Lymph node count and survival of melanoma patients."
Edward H. Kennedy
Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
Dissertation Advisor: Dylan Small, PhD & Marshall Joffe, MD, PhD
"Doubly robust causal inference with complex parameters"
Julie Kobie
Senior Scientist, Merck & Co.
Dissertation Advisor: Hongzhe Li, PhD
Jiaqi Li
Statistician, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
Dissertation Advisor: Nandita Mitra, PhD
"Doubly Robust and Machine Learning Approaches for Economic Evaluation Using Observational Data"
Pixu Shi
Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin Madison
Dissertation Advisor: Hongzhe Li, PhD
"Statistical Methods for Compositional and Tree-Structured Count Data"
Andrew Smith (MS)
Analyst II, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
Thesis Advisor: Wei-Ting Hwang, PhD
"Estimating the predictive value of continuous markers for censored survival data using a likelihood ratio approach."
Summer 2015
James Greenberg (MS)
Biostatistician, Target Health Inc.
Thesis Advisors: Bing Cai, PhD and Sean Hennessy, PhD
"Probabalistic Record Linkage within the THIN Database"
Fei Wan
Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Dissertation Advisor: Nandita Mitra, PhD
"A general framework for evaluating bias in two-stage instrumental variable methods"
Spring 2015
Lu Chen
Visiting Assistant Professor, Swarthmore College
Dissertation Advisor: Jinbo Chen, PhD
"Maximum Likelihood Methods for Missing Data Problems in Case-Control Studies"
John Pluta (MS)
Bioinformatician, University of Pennsylvania
Thesis Advisor: Russell Shinohara, PhD
"Development of dementia biomarkers from hippocampal and medial temporal lobe subregions via penalized regression"
Pixu Shu (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Nandita Mitra, PhD
"Sensitivity analysis for matching-based instrumental variable estimation"
Summer 2014
Yang Yang (MS)
Biostatistician, Northwestern University
Thesis Advisor: Mingyao Li, PhD & Muredach Reilly, MD
"A flexible framework for differential isoform expression analysis in RNA-seq"
Spring 2014
Erica Billig (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Scarlett Bellamy, ScD & Robert Gross, MD, MSCE
"Joint models as integrated approach for behavioral and biological outcomes in HIV adherence research"
Xinglei Chai (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Jinbo Chen, PhD & Timothy Rebbeck, PhD
"Use of risk-reducing surgeries in a prospective cohort of 1,499 BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carrier"
Matthew Davis
Head of Global Statistics, Teva Pharmaceuticals
Dissertation Advisor: Warren Bilker, PhD & J. Richard Landis, PhD
"Estimation and inference of the three-level intraclass correlation coefficient"
Thomas Jemielita (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Kathleen Propert, ScD & Jason Roy, PhD
"Negative binomial modeling of hospitalization rates: a comparison of New York and Pennsylvania to evaluate the health of hydro-fracking"
Cheng Jia (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Mingyao Li, PhD & Dwight Stambolian, MD, PhD
"Transcriptomic analysis of the human neurosensory retina and photoreceptor support system"
Patricia Kooker (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Kathleen Propert, ScD & Jessica Fishman, PhD
"Effects of communication in health care: Sharing information with cancer patients"
Jiaqi Li (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Nandita Mitra, PhD & Justin Bekelman, MD
"Cost effectiveness analysis using instrumental variables."
Kay See Tan
Assistant Biostatistician, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Dissertation Advisor: Andrea Troxel, ScD & Benjamin French, PhD
"Semi-parametric regression models for longitudinal data with outcome-dependent observation times"
Rengyi Emily Xu (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Rui Feng, PhD & Sara DeMauro, MD
"The impact of parental history of the onset of asthma: a study based on National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III"
Fall 2014
Anne M. Blair (MS)
Senior Biostatistician, Parexel International
Thesis Advisor: Phyllis Gimotty, PhD
"Willebrand's disease."
Jiwei He
Statistician, Food & Drug Administration
Dissertation Advisor: Marshall Joffe, MD, MPH, PhD, Alisa Stephens, PhD
"Causal modeling under complex dependency in clustered and longitudinal observations"
Jarcy Zee
Research Scientist, Arbor Research
Dissertation Advisor: Sharon X. Xie, PhD
"Survival analysis with uncertain endpoints using an internal validaion subsample"
Summer 2013
Hojun Hwang (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Justine Shults, PhD & Peter Reese, MD, MSCE
"Analysis of pediatric wait-times for deceased-donor kidneys"
Hong Wan
Dissertation Advisor: Susan Ellenberg, PhD
"Issues in adaptive/group sequential designs"
Michael Wierzbicki
Dissertation Advisor: Wensheng Guo, PhD
"Nonlinear structural functional models"
Spring 2013
Shaun Bender (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Justine Shults, PhD & Mary Leonard, MD, MSCE
"The association between calcification in the heart and bone density"
Julie Kobie (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Hongzhe Li, PhD & Dwight Stambolian, MD, PhD
"African American SNP association with glaucoma"
Anagha Kumar (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Andrea Troxel, ScD & Kathryn Schmitz, PhD, MPH
"LABAT (Lymphedema Assessment of the Breast, Arm and Torso) trial."
Julie Kobie (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Hongzhe Li, PhD & Dwight Stambolian, MD, PhD
"African American SNP association with glaucoma"
Anagha Kumar (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Andrea Troxel, ScD & Kathryn Schmitz, PhD, MPH
"LABAT (Lymphedema Assessment of the Breast, Arm and Torso) trial"
Kaitlin Woo (MS)
Thesis Advisor: Nandita Mitra, PhD & Justin Bekelman, MD
"Stage migration in prostate cancer"
Fall 2013
Lola Luo
Dissertation Advisor: Jason Roy, PhD & Dylan Small, PhD
"Methods for estimating disease stage transition rates."
Qian Vicky Wu
Dissertation Advisor: Hongzhe Li, PhD
"Statistical methods for analysis of multi-sample copy number variants and chip-seq data."
Summer 2012
Arwin Thomasson
Dissertation Advisor: Sarah Ratcliffe, PhD
"A joint longitudinal-survival model with possible cure: an analysis of patient outcomes on the liver transplant waiting list."
Fall 2012
Peter Dawson
Dissertation Advisor: Phyllis Gimotty, PhD
"Beyond traditional biomarkers: Methods for identifying and evaluating non-traditional biomarkers."
Sandra Griffith
Dissertation Advisor: Daniel Heitjan, PhD
"Statistical methods for heaped data with application to smoking cessation research."
Kaijun Liao
Dissertation Advisor: Andrea Troxel, ScD
"Statistical methods for non-ignorable missing data with applications to quality-of-life data."
Matthew White
Dissertation Advisor: Sharon Xie, PhD
"Statistical methods for evaluating diagnostic biomarkers in the presence of measurement error."
