Headshot of Alexa Beiser
Profiles

Alexa S. Beiser, PhD

Professor, Biostatistics - Boston University School of Public Health

617-358-2515
alexab@bu.edu
Crosstown Center - 3rd Floor
View Full Profile at BUMC

Biography

Alexa Beiser has been on the faculty at Boston University School of Public Health since 1985, engaged in teaching and collaborative public health research; she co-developed the doctoral program in biostatistics; co-directed the biostatistics program from 2000-2004, and served as Associate Chair for Education from 2015-2018. She formerly taught and coordinated the sections of Introduction to Statistical Computing. For more than twenty-five years, Dr. Beiser has served as the lead biostatistician for the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) neurology group, examining risk factors and prevalence and incidence of clinical and sub-clinical neurological outcomes including MRI and PET measures of brain structure, cognitive performance, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, and epilepsy. Dr. Beiser currently leads the FHS neurology group data management team, responsible for surveillance and tracking of incident dementia, for supervision of recruitment of participants for various grant-funded studies, and for management of data collected at FHS as well as those measured or processed at other institutions (e.g., brain MRI or PET scans); and the FHS neurology group biostatistics team of six biostatisticians. Decades of examining risk factors for neurological diseases has naturally led to studying factors associated with accelerated brain aging. Dr. Beiser has coauthored FHS publications relating risk factors including midlife vascular factors, plasma homocysteine, plasma leptin levels, cardiac index, red blood cell omega-3 fatty acids, metabolic dysregulation, visceral fat, air pollution; serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor; and insulin-like growth factor 1, to measures of brain aging. Dr. Beiser also has made use of the richness of the multigenerational Framingham data to relate documented parental dementia and stroke to offspring stroke, cognitive performance, and MRI measures of brain structure. In investigations of clinical neurological endpoints, she has applied competing risk analyses and has also been able to investigate temporal trends in prevalent and incident neurological disease due to the availability of event surveillance over many decades. In all these studies, Dr. Beiser plays a key role in project conceptualization, is responsible for supervision of statistical data management, analysis, and interpretation of results, and contributes to manuscript preparation and critical review.

Other Positions

  • Associate Chair, Biostatistics - Boston University School of Public Health
  • Professor, Neurology - Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
  • Investigator - Framingham Heart Study
  • - Boston Medical Center

Education

  • Boston University, PhD Field of Study: Mathematics
  • University of California, San Diego, MA Field of Study: Applied Mathematics
  • University of California, Santa Cruz, BA Field of Study: Biology/Psychology

Websites

Publications

  • Published on 5/16/2025

    Yiallourou S, Baril AA, Wiedner C, Misialek JR, Kline CE, Harrison S, Cannon E, Yang Q, Bernal R, Bisson A, Himali D, Cavuoto M, Weihs A, Beiser A, Gottesman RF, Leng Y, Lopez O, Lutsey PL, Purcell SM, Redline S, Seshadri S, Stone KL, Yaffe K, Ancoli-Israel S, Xiao Q, Vaou EO, Himali JJ, Pase MP. Sleep architecture and dementia risk in adults: An analysis of 5 cohorts from the Sleep and Dementia Consortium. Sleep. 2025 May 16. PMID: 40377976.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 4/16/2025

    Lo J, Melhorn SJ, Kee S, Olerich KLW, Huang A, Yeum D, Beiser A, Seshadri S, DeCarli C, Schur EA. Hypothalamic Gliosis Is Associated With Multiple Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors in the Framingham Heart Study. J Am Heart Assoc. 2025 Apr 16; e039463. PMID: 40240914.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 4/1/2025

    Grasset L, Bis JC, Frenzel S, Kojis D, Simino J, Yaqub A, Beiser A, Berr C, Bressler J, Bülow R, DeCarli CS, Fohner AE, Harrington LB, Helmer C, Ikram MA, Lemaitre RN, Lopez OL, Longstreth WT, Neitzel J, Odden MC, Palta P, Schmidt CO, Talluri R, Vernooij MW, Völzke H, Voortman T, Whalen Q, Wittfeld K, Grabe HJ, Mosley TH, Psaty BM, Wolters FJ, Seshadri S, Dufouil C. Selected social and lifestyle correlates of brain health markers: the Cross-Cohort Collaboration Consortium. Alzheimers Dement. 2025 Apr; 21(4):e70148. PMID: 40207408.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 4/1/2025

    Young VM, Bernal R, Baril AA, Zeynoun J, Wiedner C, Gaona C, Beiser A, Teixeira AL, Salardini A, Pase MP, Himali JJ, Seshadri S. Long sleep duration, cognitive performance, and the moderating role of depression: A cross-sectional analysis in the Framingham Heart Study. Alzheimers Dement. 2025 Apr; 21(4):e70160. PMID: 40257009.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 4/1/2025

    Salardini A, Himali JJ, Abdullah MS, Chaudhari R, Young V, Zilli EM, McGrath ER, Gonzales MM, Thibault EG, Salinas J, Aparicio HJ, Himali D, Ghosh S, Buckley RF, Satizabal CL, Johnson KA, DeCarli C, Fakhri GE, Vasan RS, Beiser AS, Seshadri S. Elevated serum cortisol associated with early-detected increase of brain amyloid deposition in Alzheimer's disease imaging biomarkers among menopausal women: The Framingham Heart Study. Alzheimers Dement. 2025 Apr; 21(4):e70179. PMID: 40271551.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 3/26/2025

    Yaqub A, Bis JC, Frenzel S, Koini M, Mbangdadji D, Peloso GM, Talluri R, Alonso A, Bahls M, Bülow R, Dörr M, Felix S, Fohner A, Friedrich N, Hofer E, Kavousi M, Launer LJ, Le T, Longstreth W, Mosley TH, Vernooij MW, Völzke H, Wittfeld K, Beiser AS, Grabe HJ, Gudnason V, Ikram MA, Psaty BM, Schmidt R, Simino J, Seshadri S, Wolters FJ. Clinical and Imaging Markers of Cardiac Function and Brain Health: A Meta-Analysis of Community-Based Studies. Neurology. 2025 Apr 22; 104(8):e213421. PMID: 40138616.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 3/10/2025

    Levine DA, Whitney RT, Ye W, Briceño EM, Gross AL, Giordani BJ, Sussman JB, Lazar RM, Howard VJ, Aparicio HJ, Beiser AS, Elkind MSV, Gottesman RF, Koton S, Pendlebury ST, Kollipara AS, Springer MV, Seshadri S, Romero JR, Fitzpatrick AL, Longstreth WT, Hayward RA. Associations Between Stroke Type, Ischemic Stroke Subtypes, and Poststroke Cognitive Trajectories. Stroke. 2025 Apr; 56(4):898-907. PMID: 40062407.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 3/3/2025

    Springer MV, Whitney RT, Ye W, Briceño EM, Gross AL, Aparicio HJ, Beiser AS, Burke JF, Elkind MSV, Ferber RA, Giordani B, Gottesman RF, Hayward RA, Howard VJ, Kollipara AS, Koton S, Lazar RM, Longstreth WT, Pendlebury ST, Sussman JB, Thacker EL, Levine DA. Education Levels and Poststroke Cognitive Trajectories. JAMA Netw Open. 2025 Mar 03; 8(3):e252002. PMID: 40136300.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 2/27/2025

    Ekenze O, Seiler S, Pinheiro A, DeCarli C, Parva P, Habes M, Charidimou A, Maillard P, Beiser A, Seshadri S, Demissie S, Romero JR. Relation of MRI visible perivascular spaces with global and regional brain structural connectivity measures: The Framingham Heart Study (FHS). Neurobiol Aging. 2025 Jun; 150:1-8. PMID: 40043467.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 1/27/2025

    Birkenbihl C, Cuppels M, Boyle RT, Klinger HM, Langford O, Coughlan GT, Properzi MJ, Chhatwal J, Price JC, Schultz AP, Rentz DM, Amariglio RE, Johnson KA, Gottesman RF, Mukherjee S, Maruff P, Lim YY, Masters CL, Beiser A, Resnick SM, Hughes TM, Burnham S, Tunali I, Landau S, Cohen AD, Johnson SC, Betthauser TJ, Seshadri S, Lockhart SN, O'Bryant SE, Vemuri P, Sperling RA, Hohman TJ, Donohue MC, Buckley RF. Rethinking the residual approach: leveraging statistical learning to operationalize cognitive resilience in Alzheimer's disease. Brain Inform. 2025 Jan 27; 12(1):3. PMID: 39871006.

     Read At: PubMed

View 414 more publications:View Full Profile at BUMC

News & In the Media

View all profiles