Tonight, Feb.11: Sullivan to Receive Regional Statistician of the Year Award.
Lisa M. Sullivan, associate dean for education at BUSPH, has been named the Statistician of the Year by the Boston Chapter of the American Statistical Association (BCASA).
The Boston Chapter, which covers the states of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, each year presents the Statistician of the Year award to a distinguished statistician who has made exceptional contributions to the field of statistics and has shown outstanding service to the statistical community. Sullivan will be honored at a Feburary 11 awards banquet where she will present on the need to promote biostatistics as a thriving career path for young students in our nation’s universities.
Lisa SullivanIn 1997, this award was renamed the Mosteller Statistician of the Year award in honor of the 80th birthday of its first recipient, Fred Mosteller, considered one of the preeminent statisticians of the 20th century. Individuals from academia, industry, and government who have contributed to the Boston Chapter are considered for the award.
Sullivan, a professor and chair of the Department of Biostatistics, teaches elementary biostatistics for MPH students and was instrumental in developing a minor program in public health which is open to undergraduate students in the BU College of Arts and Sciences. She is the Principal Investigator of the Summer Institute for Training in Biostatistics, which is designed to promote interest in the field of biostatistics and its many exciting career opportunities. The program ran for the first time in the summer of 2004.
Sullivan is co-author of a textbook entitled Introductory Applied Biostatistics, author of Essentials of Biostatistics in Public Health and co-editor-in-chief of the Enclyclopedia of Clinical Trials. She is the recipient of numerous teaching awards including the Norman A. Scotch award and the prestigious Metcalf Award, both for excellence in teaching at Boston University.
Sullivan is a statistician on the Framingham Heart Study working primarily in developing and disseminating cardiovascular risk functions. She is active in multidisciplinary research projects including a variety of projects in cardiovascular disease, a large epidemiological study to assess the association between alcohol exposure in pregnancy and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), studies to improve methods for prenatal diagnosis and a clinical trial to improve repetitive behaviors in children affected with autism.
Mosteller Statistician of the Year Banquet
Building the Biostatistics Pipeline: Educating the Next Generation of Biostatisticians
Lisa M. Sullivan
Associate Dean for Education
Professor and Chair, Department of Biostatistics Boston University School of Public Health
Date: Monday, February 11, 2013
Time: Social 6:00 pm, Dinner 6:30 pm, Presentation 7:00 pm
Location: 670 Albany Street Building 107/108, Boston University Medical Campus, 670 Albany Street, Boston, MA 02118 Directions and Parking: http://www.bumc.bu.edu/about/map-directions/
Registration: http://bcasa2013feb.eventbrite.com/ by February 4
Cost: Dinner: $20 for chapter members; $25 for non-members; students free. Presentation: free.
Abstract: Almost every day, another finding related to human health is reported in the news. A new drug shows promise for treating Alzheimer’s disease. A study in a leading medical journal suggests an association between a father’s age and risk of autism, while another finds evidence that certain genetic variants are associated with heart disease. An expert panel recommends that common tests for screening for ovarian cancer should be stopped, as they may do more harm than good. Behind all of these discoveries is Biostatistics – the science of development of statistical theory and methods for application to data-driven challenges in the health sciences. Biostatisticians work on interesting projects like these, combining statistical, mathematical, and scientific principles to solve important medical and public health problems. Biostatistics is an exciting field for people with strong quantitative skills who want to make a difference in the lives of others. Opportunities for biostatisticians with advanced training are plentiful and growing. However, despite the widespread demand for biostatisticians across the nation’s health research enterprise, U.S. students are not pursuing training in biostatistics in the numbers required. Why is this? How serious a problem is it? What is being done? We need to commit as a field to promote more vigorously the rich and rewarding opportunities available now and in the future for people with training in biostatistics or statistics and we must continue to develop innovative ways to introduce biostatistics to young people across the educational continuum.