Happy New Year!

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Joseph Hogan, ScD, Carole and Lawrence Sirovich Professor of Public Health and Professor of Biostatistics, as Chair of the Department of Biostatistics, effective January 4, 2021. Reporting directly to the Dean, the Chair will oversee the academic activities of the department and will provide oversight and leadership for important School- and University-wide activities and initiatives related to biostatistics. Professor Hogan will lead efforts to attract the best of the next generation of biostatistics faculty, and he will work with the School’s leadership to ensure continued excellence in scholarship, teaching, and service in the Department while supporting the growing needs of the School’s mission. As I mentioned in my announcement last month, I am deeply grateful for Professor Chris Schmid's service to the department as Chair from August 2018 to December 2020, and value his ongoing commitment to biostatistics

The Department of Biostatistics was formed in 2011 as one of the four academic departments in the School of Public Health. It is home to 15 full-time faculty, 21 PhD students, and 32 master's students. Departmental faculty offer a full range of introductory and advanced courses in biostatistical methodology and practice that serve students within the department and across the School and University; they also oversee the University’s undergraduate statistics concentration and teach in the Data Science master's program. The department’s faculty conduct research on the development and application of biostatistical and data science methods that are used to advance research in public health, biology, and medicine; they provide statistical leadership for several research centers at Brown and beyond, and their work attracts over $6 million in external funding annually. The department oversees the Center for Statistical Sciences, and its faculty are actively engaged in Brown’s Data Science Initiative.

Professor Hogan received his ScD in biostatistics from Harvard University in 1995 and joined the Brown faculty the same year. His research focuses on development of statistical methods for incomplete data, causal inference, and large-scale observational data, with emphasis on applications in HIV and infectious disease. Since 2007, the primary focus of his statistical and collaborative work has been on HIV in sub-Saharan Africa; he serves as co-Director of Biostatistics for the AMPATH Consortium, a group of universities affiliated with Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya, and is Program Director of an NIH-funded training grant designed to build research capacity there. Joe is an elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association and is a Statistical Editor for the New England Journal of Medicine. Here at Brown, he played a key role in establishing the Data Science Initiative and currently serves as a Deputy Director.

I am delighted that Joe will be serving as Chair for Biostatistics. He is well positioned for this critical role and will be a strategic leader during this important time for the School. Please join me in congratulating Joe on his new leadership position within the School.

Sincerely,

Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH
Dean, School of Public Health