Two research opportunities with Professor Chris Gill
1. Meta-analysis of antibiotic resistance among respiratory isolates of S. pneumoniae and H. influenzae in African patients. This is a study being conducted in partnership with PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health). The project has been running for about one year and nearly all of the data collection/extraction is now complete. We have had two student interns on the project who just graduated, and are looking for a third, final intern to help bring the project to final completion. The student must have strong analytic skills, be very comfortable with Excel and with a statistical software system of his/her choice (SPSS, SAS). Active participation on this project will lead to being named as a co-author on the paper when submitted for publication. Please contact Christopher Gill, cgill@bu.edu if you are interested in applying.
2. Meta-analysis of meta-analyses. One of the key threats to the fidelity of meta-analyses is publication bias. One of the approaches to detecting this is to create funnel plots (scatter plots of effect size by inverse of variance), and there is good empirical evidence that this approach is valid. To date, this approach has been used only to examine bias within the set of studies contributing to a given meta analysis. In this project, we aim to apply this approach at a larger level of aggregation by using individual meta analyses as the unit of analysis, rather than individual studies within a meta analysis. If successful, this work should lead to publishable new findings, and students would be credited with authorship commensurate to their level of engagement. Qualified students must demonstrate a high level of competence in statistical analysis; experience doing meta-analysis or taking classes in meta-analysis would be highly desirable. Please contact Christopher Gill, cgill@bu.edu if you are interested in applying.
