Biostatistics Analysis Center Staff
The Biostatistics Analysis Center (BAC) employs 20 professionally trained staff biostatisticians, seven SAS programmers, and four additional data management and support staff. Individual staff profiles are provided below.
MS (Applied Statistics), West Chester University of Pennsylvania, 2007
Ms. Appleby joined the Biostatistics Unit in January, 2008, after completing her master's degree. Prior to returning to graduate school, she accumulated 17 years of experience in programming, engineering, management, and consulting at companies including DuPont and Oracle. She is currently collaborating on several projects.
MS (Statistics), Ohio State University, 1997
Ms. Brensinger joined the Biostatistics Unit within the CCEB upon receiving her degree in July of 1997. Prior to graduate school, she worked for two years as a statistical analyst at the Center for Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in Hershey, PA. Ms. Brensinger currently works on collaborative projects involving schizophrenia, interstitial cystitis, drug-induced sudden death, and predictors of over- and under-anticoagulation while on warfarin treatment. In addition, she serves as a statistical consultant to the Gastroenterology Division.
PhD (Psychology), University of Pennsylvania, 1975
Dr. Cary joined the Biostatistics Unit in February 2003 after 25 years of experience in academia (as faculty at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN) and business settings (as Sr. Statistician at Chilton Research, Radnor, PA, and VP for Management Science at Research International USA). His current work is primarily in psychiatry, conjoint preference measurement, and databases.
MS (Biostatistics), State University of New York at Albany, 2003
Ms. Cen joined the Biostatistics Unit in April 2006. She is a biostatistician on health service research for the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine, and was a data analyst working on healthcare outcome measures research for the Department of Health Policy, Management & Behavior at University at Albany, School of Public Health. She currently works on collaborative projects involving interstitial cystitis and cardiac arrest.
MS (Statistics), University of Maryland, 1993
Mr. Chittams joined the Biostatistics Unit in 1997 after serving three years as Director of the Data Management and Statistics Unit within the Center for Psychotherapy Research at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chittams currently serves as Interim Managing Director of the BAC and leads a series of technical training sessions for the biostatisticians in the BAC. In addition, he works on collaborative projects involving rheumatoid arthritis, alcohol addiction, radiology, ectopic pregnancy, eating disorders, and heart disorders.
MS (Statistics), Texas A&M University, 2002;
MS (Biophysics), Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Science, 2000
Ms. Chuai joined the Biostatistics Unit in July 2005 after serving two years as Research Biostatistician in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY. Her experience varies from phase I, II, and III clinical trials design, retrospective data analysis, to statistical genetics, including microarray data analysis and SNP/haplotype association studies. Ms. Chuai is currently involved in several randomized clinical trials within the Urological Pelvic Pain Collaborative Research Network (UPPCRN). She is also working on collaborative projects including candidate gene analysis and genome-wide association analysis in breast cancer and cardiovascular studies.
PhD (Statistics), Yale University, 1992
Dr. Crowley joined the Biostatistics Unit in April 2008 after several years working as an independent statistical consultant, on projects in the areas of substance abuse, prostate cancer and nursing research. Prior to this, she worked as an applied statistician in the Epidemiology Data Center at the University of Pittsburgh, and in the Treatment Research Institute in Philadelphia. She began her career as a faculty member in the Department of Statistics at Purdue University, where she collaborated with chemistry researchers on the application of Bayesian methods to DNA data. She is currently involved in projects within the Urological Pelvic Pain Collaborative Research Network (UPPCRN).
PhD (Sociology), University of Pennsylvania, 2004
Dr. Eachus joined the Biostatistics Unit as a senior biostatistician in January 2008 after participating in several other studies in the School of Medicine. Her previous experience includes undergraduate teaching in sociology and studies of quality of care for hypertension. Dr. Eachus is currently the BAC lead for the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) study. She is also working on collaborative projects related to HIV and persons with mental illnesses.
PhD (Mathematical Statistics), Drexel University, 2000;
MS (Statistics), Drexel University, 1995
Dr. Gallop joined the Biostatistics Unit in 1999 after serving two years as Director of the Data Management and Statistics Unit within the Center for Psychotherapy Research at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Gallop is currently collaborating on the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) grant and methods work with Dr. Ten Have.
BS (Mathematics), Cheyney University, Senior
Mr. Greene joined the BAC as a SAS programmer in December 2006. He is currently a senior at Cheyney University majoring in Mathematics. Mr. Greene works at the BAC part-time on the collaborative project Physical Activity and Lymphedema (PAL). He also, works part-time as a Research Assistant at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in the Adolescent Medicine Department on an HIV/AIDS Community Based Participatory Research Project, Connect to Protect®.
MS (Statistics), University of Cincinnati, 2002
Ms. Han joined the Biostatistics Unit in January 2005 after serving two years as a biostatistician at the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion at the VA in Pittsburgh, PA. She currently works on collaborative projects involving the Impact of Quinolone-resistant E. coli carriage study, the PRIME P1 medical errors project, Walking for wellness study, Drug-drug interction study, and the CARBS study.
MPH, University of Pittsburgh, 2006
Mr. Hanish joined the BAC as a SAS programmer in May 2007 after completing a Master of Public Health degree in Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh. Currently, Mr. Hanish is participating in two projects; the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) and the Urological Pelvic Pain Collaborative Research Network (UPPCRN).
BS (Mathematics) University of Pennsylvania, currently matriculating
Mr. Herlim joined the BAC as a SAS programmer in 2001. He is currently a student at the University of Pennsylvania majoring in mathematics. Mr. Herlim currently works on collaborative projects involving schizophrenia, women's health, and several projects using the GPRD and CMS databases.
MS (Biostatistics), University of Michigan, 1998
Mr. Kallan joined the Biostatistics Unit upon receiving his degree in 1998. During his time in graduate school, he worked as a statistician for both the University of Michigan Transportation Institute (UMTRI) and the Ann Arbor Veterans' Administration. Mr. Kallan has worked on various collaborative projects during his time at Penn, including those in the fields of child passenger safety, geriatric psychiatry, rheumatoid arthritis, obesity, lymphedema, and pneumonia. In addition to being a co-author on numerous papers in the peer-reviewed literature, he has presented research findings from the Partners for Child Passenger Safety project at both scientific and statistical conferences.
BS (Applied Statistics), Penn State University, 2005
Mr. Kim join the CCEB early 2006. He is working on collaborative projects involving chronic renal insufficiency, GPRD data, and other projects building Access databases. Prior to this, Mr. Kim spent a year working for the Statistical Consulting Center at PSU University Park where he practiced statistical analysis in various fields of social science, but mainly in the field of economics.
SAS Certificates, Philadelphia University, 2001;
BS (Medical Laboratory Technologist), Hunan Medical University, 1987, Changsha, Hunan, China
Ms. Liu joined the BAC as a SAS programmer in March 2002. Prior to coming to the CCEB, she worked at GEN Trak, Inc. Ms. Liu currently works on collaborative projects involving: lymphedema, psoriasis, sudden death, diet, and lung disease.
BS (Business Economics), Grove City College, 1999; B.A. (Mathematics) West Chester University, 2004; MS (Applied Sciences), West Chester University, 2006
Mr. Newcomb joined the BAC as a SAS programmer in 2004; he is now serving as a biostatistician. He currently works on collaborative projects involving predictors of over- and under-anticoagulation in warfarin treatment, drug-induced sudden death, irritable bowl syndrome, Crohn's disease, and several projects building and maintaining Access databases.
MS (Statistics), University of Washington, 1988
Ms. Praestgaard joined the BAC in January 2007, bringing with her more than sixteen years experience as a consulting statistician and manager. Her applied statistics experience is diverse, and her management experience includes leading the biostatistics group at the College of American Pathologists and managing a fraud analytics department at Citigroup. Ms. Praestgaard's pre-Penn accomplishments include developing a patented methodology to cluster pathology laboratories according to test volume and complexity and saving a credit card portfolio more than $10 million per year by implementing statistically derived fraud rules. Ms. Praestgaard now serves as Managing Director for the BAC, and, along with the BAC Faculty Director and Associate Director, is responsible for ensuring that the unit operates as efficiently as possible, consistently delivers high quality and timely results, and is strategically poised to meet the evolving demands of the research community.
PhD (Mechanical Engineering), Xian Jiaotong University, China, 1995
Dr. Sha joined the Biostatistics Unit as Biostatistician in July 2008. Before, he was a research associate scientist in biomechanics at Yale School of Medicine. His current projects involve BRFSS, CMS and THIN databases.
BS (Business Management), University of Phoenix, 2007
Ms. Smith joined the BAC as a SAS Programmer Analyst in November 2007. Prior to joining the BAC, she worked in the Faculty Affairs and Professional Development Department in the School of Medicine, as an Office System Coordinator. There she analyzed faculty data using SQL and Crystal Reports reporting tools. Catherine has also worked at the Philadelphia Workforce Development Corporation as a Database Coordinator, maintaining Microsoft Access Databases to track and monitor job seeker data. Her knowledge of SQL has helped her transition to using SAS, since their languages are interchangeable in Proc SQL. In the BAC, Ms. Smith is currently collaborating on the PAL, UPHS and PIPS projects.
MS (Statistics), University of Tennessee, 2007
Mr. Tao joined the Biostatistics Unit in May 2008 as a SAS programmer after completing his master’s degree in Statistics; he is now serving as a biostatistician. He is currently working on the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) study.
PhD (Measurement, Evaluation and Techniques of Experimental Research), University of Pennsylvania, 1987;
MS (Measurement, Evaluation and Techniques of Experimental Research), University of Pennsylvania, 1981
Dr. Taylor joined the Biostatistics Unit in September 2000. She has over 15 years of experience in programming and data analysis, research design, and statistical consulting in psychometrics, program evaluation, and biostatistics. She is also the statistician and program evaluation specialist for the Center of Excellence on Minority Health at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine, and was the senior data analyst for the Center of Health Behavior, Communications, and Policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communications.
MS (Biostatistics), University of Pennsylvania, 2006; MS (Materials Engineering), MIT, 1984
Ms. Teal joined the Biostatistics Unit in August 2006 after completing her degree. Prior to returning to graduate school, she accumulated over 15 years of experience as an engineer with Boeing, GMT Microelectronics, and Lucent. As a biostatistics grad student she worked on clinical trials. She is currently collaborating on several projects including the CRIC study (Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort), intervention studies, and working with NHANES III data.
MS (Applied Statistics), University of Vermont, 2001;
MS (Applied Math), University of Cincinnati, 2003
Mr. Wan joined the Biostatistics Unit in Aug 2006 and currently works on collaborative projects involving Medicare and statistical genetics.
MS (Biostatistics), University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), 2004
Ms. Wang joined the BAC as a biostatistician in August 2004. She currently works on collaborative projects involving the GPRD database for psoriasis, and the hormonal prevention of CV disease. She uses various statistical techniques including survival analysis, conditional logistic regression, multiple imputation for missing data and propensity-matching. She is also involved in short-term consulting projects such as the economic impact on adherence in HIV/AIDS study.
PhD (Psychology), University of Pennsylvania, 1975
Dr. Weber joined the Biostatistics Unit in October 1998. Some highlights of her work include collaboration on case-control studies of cancer and its sequelae, with Drs. Brian Strom, Sandra Norman, and Timothy Rebbeck (CCEB); and a clinical trial of exercise in the frail elderly, with Drs. Neville Strump (School of Nursing, UPenn) and JA Grisso (formerly of the CCEB, now at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). She has used various statistical techniques including survival analysis, conditional logistic regression, and propensity-matching.
MS (Computer Engineering), University of Maryland, 2007
Mr. Wu joined the CCEB in October 2008. He is working on collaborative projects involving Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder study and Antiepileptic research with Medicaid, Medicare and THIN data and other project for lung transplant outcomes. Prior to this, Mr. Wu worked part time at NIH for bioinformatics research project.
