Department News
Recent News
Newsletters
2019 News
In October 2019, Ming Tan, Ph.D. visited the Beijing Institute of Technology Zhuhai (BITZH), College of Global Talents (CGT) in Zhuhai, China. Dr. Tan attended the initial opening of one of the Halls of Culture, the Mount Tai Hall, which is being developed at the college, and Georgetown University banners were featured at the ceremony. BITZH CGT is one of the international universities who collaborate with Georgetown University’s Biomedical Graduate Education (BGE) academic programs.
Biostatistics Orientation – Fall 2019
In August, the Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics and Biomathematics (DBBB) faculty and staff welcomed 37 new incoming students at the annual Department Orientation. Specifically, 31 MS students and 6 Ph.D. students will start their respective programs in Fall 2019. Our graduate programs continue to grow strong as the MS Program in Biostatistics enters it’s 13th year and the Ph.D. Program in Biostatistics enters it’s 3rd year.
We wish our students a successful start in their 2019 – 2020 academic year at Georgetown!
MS Program in Biostatistics Enters It’s 13TH Year
Ph.D. Program in Biostatistics Enters It’s 3RD Year
(L to R: Yifei Xu, Shuqi Wang, Yutong Luo, Tianmin Wu; Junyi Zhang, Patrick McDeed)
Summer 2019 Update
Ruzong Fan, Ph.D. was awarded a highly competitive U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) grant as Principal Investigator! The NSF grant award will support his Collaborative Research in “Stochastic Models for Gene-based Association Analysis of Longitudinal Phenotypes with Sequence Data” from 2019-2022 .
In July 2019, Ming Tan, Ph.D. was invited to speak at the 2019 China Biostatistics Annual Meeting Conference held in Guangzhou, China. Dr. Tan’s presentation focused on his research in Multi-regional Clinical Trials (MRCT).
Hongbin Fang, Ph.D. was an invited speaker at the 2019 International Chinese Statistical Association (ICSA) Conference with Focus on Data Science in Tianjin, China. In the “Statisical Analysis of Complex Data” session, Dr. Fang presented on “Subgroup Identification in Survival Outcome Data based on Concordance Probability Measurement”.
In summer 2019, Kepher Makambi, Ph.D. was a Visiting professor at the Pan African University Institute for Basic Sciences, Technology and Innovation (PAUISTI) which is hosted at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr. Makambi interacted and advised students pursuing Masters & Doctorate programs in areas such as mathematics & statistics.
Dr. Makambi was invited to give two seminar presentations at PAUISTI/JKUAT. His talk on June 19th focused on “Mathematical and Statistical (Post) Graduate Research Preparation: Getting the Needed Information”. On July 4th, Dr. Makambi focused on “Academic Publication in Mathematics and Statistics”.
Faculty Promotions in 2019
Congratulations to our faculty who received promotions or tenure in 2019!
Hongbin Fang, Ph.D., earned tenure as an Associate Professor of Biostatistics. Before joining Georgetown University in 2013, Dr. Hongbin Fang was Associate Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center and the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Fang received his Ph.D. degree from Hong Kong Baptist University. Dr. Fang has extensive collaborative research experience in the statistical design and analysis of laboratory, translational, clinical and epidemiological studies in cancer research. His statistical expertise includes the design and analysis of preclinical models and clinical trials, the evaluation of diagnostic tests, biomarkers and drug combinations, survival analysis, the analysis of high dimensional genomic data and statistical bioinformatics, predictive and prognostic models of cancer, longitudinal and Bayesian hierarchical/multi-level modeling and applied Bayesian methods.
James Li, Ph.D, was promoted to Associate Professor. Dr. Li received his Ph.D. in Information Systems from University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and joined the departmental faculty as an Assistant Professor in 2012. Dr. Li focuses his research on machine learning, data science, and their applications on ultra-high throughput biomedical research data.
George Luta, Ph.D., was promoted from Associate Professor to Full Professor of Biostatistics. Dr. Luta received his MS and PhD in Biostatistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Luta has been with the Department since 2007. His current honorary appointments include being a Visiting Professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology at Aarhus University (Aarhus, Denmark) and a Visiting Professor at the Parker Institute (Copenhagen University Hospital, Frederiksberg, Denmark). Dr. Luta is an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute. He has more than 20 years of experience in the design and statistical analysis of observational studies and randomized controlled trials. His current methodological research work is focused on the development of new statistical methods for measures of health disparities.
Anca Dragomir, Ph.D., was promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor of Oncology and she has a secondary appointment in Biostatistics. Dr. Dragomir has a Ph.D. degree in Epidemiology from the Gillings School of Global Public Health, UNC at Chapel Hill and a graduate degree in Mathematics from University of Timisoara, Romania. Dr. Dragomir’s current research focuses on the epidemiology of colorectal and other gastrointestinal cancers, and also environmental exposures related to childhood cancers. She has more than fifteen years of work experience as an epidemiologist, including subject recruitment, questionnaire design, data collection, biospecimen collection/storage, biomarker measurement and evaluation, epidemiological analyses, and manuscript preparation.
Michael Plankey, Ph.D., was promoted from Associate Professor to Full Professor of Medicine and he has a secondary appointment in Biostatistics. He is a clinical infectious disease and nutritional epidemiologist. He is the Co-Investigator for Baltimore-Washington, DC site of the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Washington, DC Consortium of the Women’s Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) at Georgetown University. He serves as the sole primary investigator funded by both cohorts.
Georgetown University Commencement 2019
Congratulations to our MS graduates (Class of 2018, December). Many of our recent graduates returned to DC to participate in the Georgetown University Commencement Ceremony in May 2019. Afterwards, the Department held a Graduation Happy Hour to celebrate and reconnect faculty with our newest MS alumni at the Bulldog Tavern.
2018 News
11TH Annual Practicum Defense – December 2018
In December 2018, we hosted a successful Research Practicum Defense poster presentation in McShain Lounge. The defense is the culmination of our graduating MS students’ year long work on a research project mentored by our faculty. In the course of their projects, students learn advanced tools and techniques and apply them towards solving a practical problem from biomedical fields, thus contributing to scientific advancements. There were 33 quality research projects presented at our 11th Annual Practicum.
Biostatistics Orientation – Fall 2018
In August, faculty and staff welcomed 35 new incoming students at the Department Orientation. Specifically, 31 MS students, 3 Ph.D. students, and 1 Certificate student will start their respective programs this Fall 2018. The Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics and Biomathematics (DBBB) and it’s graduate programs continue to grow strong as our MS Program in Biostatistics enters it’s 12th year and our Ph.D. Program in Biostatistics enters it’s 2nd year.
We wish our incoming and returning students a successful start to the new 2018-2019 academic year at Georgetown!
MS Program in Biostatistics Enters It’s 12TH Year
Ph.D. Program in Biostatistics Enters It’s 2ND Year
Ming Tan, Ph.D. was an invited speaker at the 2018 Workshop for Statistics and Data Science in Chengdu, China on July 8, 2018. Dr. Tan’s presentation was titled “Adaptive Design of Clinical Trials with External Control and Real World Data.”
In July 2018, Kepher Makambi, Ph.D. was invited to speak at Kissi University in Kisii, Kenya. Dr. Makambi presented on “Opportunities in Mathematics and Statistics.” His presentation focused on how mathematics and statistics training can provides graduates with a great foundation and skills gained are transferrable to outside disciplines and areas such as Business, Health & Medicine, Physical Sciences, Enviroment and Government.
In June 2018, Kepher Makambi, Ph.D. was an invited guest speaker at the Machakos University Seminar on Statistics in Kenya. Dr. Makambi’s presentation was titled “Statistics and the Role of Statisticians in Interdisciplinary Collaborative Research.” It focused on the role of statisticians in terms of potential contribution to collaborative interdisciplinary research, with special attention to the evolution of this role in light of the fast changes in computational and statistical methodology, funding agencies’ requirements, and the advent of BIG DATA.
In addition, Dr. Makambi was invited to give a separate presentation on “Getting Published in Refereed/Peer-Reviewed Journals” and teach an “R/R Studio Workshop” at Machakos University.
Ruzong Fan, Ph.D. was invited by Le Centre de Recherches Mathématiques (CRM) 2018 “Summer School” on Statisical Genetics to teach a mini-course workshop in July 2018 at the Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada. His workshop was on “Functional Regression Models for Association Analysis of Complex Traits”. In addition, Dr. Fan gave a separate seminar presentation on “Stochastic Functional Regression Models for Gene-based Association Analysis of Quantitative Traits in Longitudinal Studies”.
In July, several faculty members were invited speakers at the 2018 International Chinese Statistical Association (ICSA) Conference with Focus on Data Science in Qingdao, China. In the “Statisical Methods for Computational and Systems Biology” session, Hongbin Fang, Ph.D presented on “Predicting Multi-drug Inhibition Interactions Based on Signaling Networks and Single Dose-Response Information” and Ao Yuan, Ph.D presented on “Testing for Multiple Mean and Correlation Curves with Functional Data and Applications to Temporal Gene Expressions.” In the “Subgroup Analysis and Adaptive Designs in Clinical Trials” session, Ming Tan, Ph.D. presented on “Robust Estimate of Regional Rx Effects in Multi-regional Trials.”
Georgetown University Commencement 2018
Congratulations to our MS graduates (Class of 2017, December). A number of our recent graduates returned to DC to participate in the Georgetown University Commencement Ceremony in May 2018. Afterwards, the Department held it’s annual Graduation Dinner to celebrate and reconnect faculty with our newest MS alumni at the Capitol City Brewery.
In May 2018, Kepher Makambi, Ph.D. was awarded a fellowship by the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program to travel and work as a Visiting Scholar at Machakos University in Kenya. During the summer, Dr. Makambi will work with Professor Peter Mwita. His project will focus on Curriculum Co-development and Postgraduate Program Capacity Building for Employable Skills in Public Health Courses.
Dr. Makambi will lead and facilitate initiatives to review and reform curriculum content with regard to quality and relevance of courses and programs is the Schools of Health Sciences and Pure Applied Sciences. The aim is to enhance the competencies and employability of Machakos University graduates by bridging curriculum deficiencies. Dr. Makambi will work with Prof. Mwita to train junior faculty on competence-based learning and content delivery skills with the aim of enhancing best classroom practices, improving mentoring and advisory skills, and enhancing commitment to the core values and objectives of higher education. Dr. Makambi will also rekindle ongoing research collaboration and graduate student mentoring efforts with Prof. Mwita with aim of assisting Machakos University increase its pool of PhD holders in statistics among faculty.
The program is funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and managed by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in collaboration with United States International University-Africa (USIU-Africa) in Nairobi, Kenya. Designed to increase Africa’s brain circulation, build capacity at host institutions, and develop long-term, mutually-beneficial collaborations between universities in Africa and the United States and Canada.
2017 News
“Memoir of a Number Doctor” by Edmund A. Gehan, Ph.D.
(new window)Edmund A. Gehan, Ph.D., a Professor Emeritus of Biostatistics, is happy to share his anticipated book, “Memoir of a Number Doctor” published in late 2017. This memoir represents a lifelong project and dream of his. Dr. Gehan has written a highly personal memoir about growing up in New York, his research accomplishments, family life, and varied experiences in running, trekking, skiing, travel and humor. If interested in reading his memoir, he has graciously made an e-book available for download.
Summary from Back Cover:
Edmund A. Gehan was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1929, majored in mathematics at Manhattan College and received a Ph.D. in Experimental Statistics and Public Health in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of North Carolina. His career was spent as a biostatistician in cancer research at the National Cancer Institute, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute, and the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center of Georgetown University. He held fellowships at Birkbeck College (London) and the University of Paris.
Dr. Gehan met and married Brenda McKeon in 1962 and they raised five children, James, Laura, Carole, Diane and Margery. He has written a highly personal memoir about growing up in New York, his research accomplishments, family life, and varied experiences in running, trekking, skiing, travel and humor. His objective is to live a fulfilling life and communicate in this book, a sense of excitement about the journey.
M.S. in Biostatistics Program Celebrates 10 Years in 2017!
The year 2017 marks the 10-Year Anniversary of the M.S. program in Biostatistics at Georgetown University and the M.S. Research Practicum Defense. Our first class of M.S. students enrolled in the Fall of 2006 academic year. These first students successfully defended their Research Practium projects and graduated in December of 2007. As we celebrate reaching this significant milestone, we look forward to the next 10 years as our department and graduate programs continue to grow.
Annual Practicum Defense – December 2017
In December 2017, we hosted a successful Research Practicum Defense poster presentation in McShain Lounge. The defense is the culmination of our MS students’ year long work on a research project mentored by our faculty. In the course of their projects, students learn advanced tools and techniques and apply them towards solving a practical problem from biomedical fields, thus contributing to scientific advancements. There were 25 quality research projects presented at our 10th Annual Practicum.
Biostatistics Orientation – Fall 2017
We welcomed a new class of students starting the Masters in Biostatistics program in Fall 2017!
Let’s Celebrate the Kickoff of the Ph.D. in Biostatistics Program!
We welcome the inaugural class starting the Doctorate in Biostatistics program in Fall 2017! The department is happy to celebrate the kickoff of Georgetown University’s newest Ph.D. program that has been many years in the making. Our Doctorate program in Biostatistics joins our established Masters program. It gives future Ph.D. students, who already hold an M.S degree, the opportunity to further their education with an in-depth focus on statistical methods and statistical methoodological research.
Xue Geng, M.S., joined the department in September 2017 as a Junior Biostatistician. She received her Masters in Biostatistics from Georgetown University and her B.S. in Biological Engineering at Shanghai University, China. Ms. Geng provides consulting services for medical students’ Independent Study Projects, a requirement for graduation. In addition, she collaborates with medical doctors and scientists for their funded research, grant applications, and clinical trials protocols and analysis plans.
In September 2017, Ming T. Tan, Ph.D., gave a keynote presentation at the 3rd International Forum on Drug Safety and Policy, as part of the 2017 Belt and Road Initiative Global Health International Congress on Big Data and Innovation in New Drug Development & Evaluation. Approximately 400 delegates from 29 countries attended this year’s Global Health Congress in Xi’an, China.
In 2017, Ruzong Fan, Ph.D. presented at 10 invited talks and seminars about his research on “Functional Regression Models for Gene-based Association Studies of Complex Traits”. Dr. Fan presented at the Joint Statistical Meeting (JSM) in Baltimore, the International Chinese Statistical Association (ICSA) Conference with Focus on Lifetime Data in Jilin, China, and the ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium in Chicago. He was an invited speaker at several academic institutions in both China and the US. These included the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, Yunnan University in Kunming, Jilin University in Changchun, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and Univerity of Maryland College Park.
Kepher Makambi, Ph.D. was invited to present at the 4th Strathmore International Mathematics Conference (SIMC 2017) in Nairobi, Kenya from June 19-23, 2017. The theme of the conference was “Enhancing Collaborative Research in Mathematical Sciences”. Dr. Makambi’s presentation was titled “A Joint Assessment of Outcomes in Quantitative Evidence Synthesis”.
Ming Tan, Ph.D. was invited to present at the Chinese Academy of Sciences – State Laboratory of Random Complex Structure and Data on May 16, 2017. His presentation title was “Design and Analysis of Multidrug Combinations: Reducing Big System Data for Experiments”.
2016 News
Annual Practicum Defense – December 2016
In December 2016, we hosted another successful Research Practicum Defense poster presentation in McShain Lounge. The defense is the culmination of our graduating MS students’ year long work on a research project mentored by our faculty. In the course of their projects, students learn advanced tools and techniques and apply them towards solving a practical problem from biomedical fields, thus contributing to scientific advancements.
2016 GUMC Research Recognition Award Receipient, George Luta, Ph.D.
On November 17, 2016, during the 9th Annual Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) Convocation, George Luta, Ph.D. has received the GUMC Research Recognition Award for outstanding achievement in research. Dr. Luta is the first faculty member from our department to receive this award, and we congratulate him for being recognized for his outstanding research.
Ruzong Fan, Ph.D., joined the department in October 2016 as a Professor. Ruzong came to us from NIH where he was investigator (2011-2016). He was previously a faculty member in the Department of Statistics at Texas A&M University (2001-2011), rising from assistant professor to Associate Professor (tenured). He was a visiting professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center (2008-2009). He has published extensively in probability and statistics journals, human genetics and genetic epidemiology. His research interests include Statistical Genetics and Genomics, Stochastic Modeling, Stochastic Processes and Applications, focusing on developing novel statistical methodology to analyze biomedical data and to increase understanding of biological architecture of complex diseases with applications to public health. Besides his independent research in statistical genetics, he will collaborate with Lombardi and GU investigators, and participate in research and education in biostatistics and bioinformatics.
Ming T. Tan, Ph.D., presented as a keynote speaker Robust Subgroup Analysis in Clinical Trials at the annual Chinese Biostatistics Conference in Tianjin July 28, 2016. This is the primary biostatistics conference in China with over 600 attendees this year.
Junrui Di, 2013 alumnus, published an original paper: Determining Survery Satisficing of Online Longitudinal Survey Data in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study: A Group-Based Trajectory Analysis with Michael Plankey, Ph.D, as the corresponding author.
Ming T. Tan, Ph.D., presented an invited talk at the 2016 AHA/ASA International Stroke Conference, held February 16th-19th at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Designing the Next Generation of Rehabilitation Clinical Trials: Learning from Cancer in Early Stage Trial Designs and Predictive Analysis
2015 News
Annual Practicum Defense – December 2015
In December 2015, we hosted a successful Research Practicum Defense poster presentation. The defense is the culmination of our students’ year long work on a research project mentored by our faculty. In the course of their projects, students learn advanced tools and techniques and apply them towards solving a practical problem from biomedical fields, thus contributing to scientific advancements. This year, there were 24 high quality research projects, with topics ranging from methods in next generation sequencing analysis to adaptive clinical trial design to epidemiological studies of congenital defects. The quality was praised by everyone involved, including our external collaborators.
Ling Cai, Ph.D., has been promoted to Senior Biostatistician. Dr. Cai has been a biostatistician within our department since 2013. She received both her Ph.D. in chemical physics and Master’s degree in mathematical statistics from the University of Maryland at College Park in 2009. Dr. Cai provides consulting services for medical students’ Independent Study Projects, which is required for their graduation. She also collaborates with medical doctors and scientists for their funded research, grant applications, and clinical trials protocols and analysis plans; and supports the departmental teaching activities.
Ao Yuan, Ph.D., was recently promoted from Senior Biostatistician to Associate Professor. Dr. Yuan received his Ph.D. in statistics from University of British Columbia. Before joining the department in June 2014, he worked at Howard University National Human Genome Center as a research biostatistician for about 14 years, where he conducted research in biostatistics, clinical trials, empirical methods, and Bayesian methods.
Xiaogang “Simon” Zhong, Ph.D., was recently promoted to Assistant Professor. Dr. Zhong’s research focuses on developing statistical methods and tools for analysis of high-throughput genomic and epigenomic data. He have worked extensively on gene expression microarray data from various technology platforms, genome-wide association studies of SNPs and copy number variants, enrichment of molecular pathways, impact of structural variants in the evolution of pathways and next generation sequencing data.
Between May 25 and June 8, 2015, Professor Kepher Makambi was a guest lecturer at Pan African University Institute of Sciences, Technology and Innovation (PAUSTI) near Nairobi, Kenya. He gave two talks, titled “Data Science, Big Data and High-D Data: Is the Future of Statistics Threatened?” and “An Overview of Quantitative Data Synthesis”.
Professor Emeritus Ed Gehan was one of the invited speakers at the Fraud in Clinical Trials seminars held in Brussels, Belgium on April 20. He presented “Fraud in Clinical Trials: The Krebiozen story.” Professor Ming Tan presented an invited talk on design and analysis of multidrug combination studies and Phase I Clinical Trials at the Paris Symposium on Early Phase Clinical Trial Methodology on April 16, 2015.
Robert Beckman, M.D., is currently Professor of Oncology and of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, and Biomathematics at Georgetown University Medical Center, as well as a faculty member of the Innovation Center of Biomedical Informatics. Dr. Beckman is an oncology clinical researcher and mathematical biologist, whose goals are to develop cancer therapies and to improve the way cancer therapies are developed and deployed in patients, with emphasis on personalized medicine, tumor heterogeneity, and tumor evolution. Together with the department, he will work on drug discovery and quantitative oncology.
Simina Boca, Ph.D., joined the department in April 2015 as a secondary appointment. Dr. Boca received a Ph.D. in Biostatistics and an M.H.S. in Bioinformatics from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2011. She then held a postdoctoral fellowship in the Biostatistics Branch of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute. She is a faculty member in the Innovation Center for Biomedical Informatics, holding a primary appointment in the Department of Oncology. Dr. Boca is also a member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program within the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her research primarily focuses on the development of methods and tools for the analysis of “omics” data, including genomics and metabolomics, especially as they relate to cancer. Further areas of substantive interest include cancer epidemiology and population genetics. Her research in oncology includes work on identifying genes and gene sets that are drivers of tumor development and on the link between diet, metabolites, and cancer risk. Her statistical interests include set-level analysis, multiple testing approaches, permutation methods, and meta-analysis.