Academic Programs

Biostatistics

Research

The Biostatistics Division is currently involved in a wide variety of ongoing research efforts throughout the university, including at the School of Public Health and the School of Medicine. Our underlying philosophy of biostatistical scholarship is to develop methods based on sound statistical practice that will address important questions in the health sciences. This requires an active collaboration with substantive areas of research, and many of these substantive areas are described in connection with the key areas of methodological development by faculty and students.

Genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics.
Today it is almost impossible to conduct biological and biomedical research without using genomics or proteomics tools, with microarray gene expression experiments as the best-known and studied platform. Special projects and interdisciplinary research projects are:

• Laboratory of Statistical Genomics and Proteomics (headed by Dr. Hongyu Zhao) conducts research to develop mathematical, statistical, computational, and visualization tools to address scientific problems in molecular biology and genetics.

• Collaborative Center for Statistical Science (headed by Dr. Heping Zhang) develops methods and software for flexible classification and regression that may be used in health related studies including the analyses of genetic and genomic data.

• Yale Center for Genomics and Proteomics (CGP)which functions as a "Center without Walls" for Yale investigators interested in genomics and proteomics.

• Yale Center for Medical Genomics and Proteomics (headed by Dr. Richard Lifton)

• Bioinformatics (headed by Drs. Perry Miller and Mark Gerstein)

• W.M. Keck Foundation Biotechnology Resource Laboratory (headed by Dr. Kenneth Williams) which provides a wide range of genomic and proteomic syntheses and analyses including DNA microarray technology, oligo and peptide synthesis, DNA and protein sequencing

Statistical methods in epidemiology.
Areas of research that will provide opportunities to degree candidates are (1) analysis and display of spatial-temporal trends in disease; (2) methods for modeling the effects of air pollution from traffic on asthma in children; (3) methods for using remote sensing information obtained from satellites to identify geographic areas at high risk of exposure to disease vectors; and (4) design and analysis of the implementation of a community intervention for reducing the risk of falls in older persons.

• Modeling Interventions for Lung Cancer Mortality (headed by Dr. Theodore Holford) which is part of the Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET), a consortium of statistical and mathematical modelers who are trying to understand the reasons for U.S. cancer incidence and mortality trends in major sites.

• Center for Perinatal, Pediatric & Environmental Epidemiology (CPPEE) (headed by Drs. Michael Bracken and Brian Leaderer) which is conducting a series of studies on factors associated with the development and severity of childhood asthma.

• Vector Ecology Laboratory (headed by Dr. Durland Fish) studies the importance of vector ecology on the risk of Lyme disease, infection with West Nile virus and other microbial diseases.

• Yale Pepper Center on Aging (headed by Dr. Mary Tinnetti) conducts are variety of different studies of health in older persons.

Cancer

• Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center has research strengths in laboratory, epidemiological, preventive, and clinical medicine research on cancer.

Clinical trials and clinical investigations

• VA Cooperative Study Program (headed by Dr. Peter Peduzzi) provides design, data management, statistical analysis, and administrative coordination of multicenter trials. The Center is currently coordinating 4 multi-center national trials and 2 multi-center international trials in several disease areas (cardiovascular, kidney and infectious diseases, including HIV) that range in size from 500 patients to more than 38,000 patients.

• Child Study Center (CSC)(headed by Dr. Alan Kazdin) brings together multiple disciplines to further the understanding of the problems of children and families.

AIDS

• Center for Interdisciplinary Research in AIDS (CIRA) (headed by Dr. Paul Cleary) is the central research group studying HIV on the medical side of the campus.

Faculty

PRIMARY

Theodore R. Holford, Ph.D., Division Head
Lisa Calvocoressi, Ph.D.
Elizabeth B. Claus, Ph.D., M.D.
Yongtao Guan, Ph.D.
Ralitza Gueorguieva, Ph.D.
Pamela M. Hartigan, Ph.D.
Haiqun Lin, M.D., Ph.D.
Steven (Shuangge) Ma, Ph.D.
Robert W. Makuch, Ph.D.
Annette Molinaro, Ph.D.
Peter N. Peduzzi, Ph.D.
Ning Sun, Ph.D.
Daniel Zelterman, Ph.D. (Sabbatical)
Heping Zhang, Ph.D. (Fall Triennial)
Hongyu Zhao, Ph.D.

EMERITUS

Colin White, M.B.B.S.

SECONDARY

Prakash Nadkarni, M.D.