The Department of Biostatistics was organized to carryout these goals:
To develop graduate programs in biostatistics to assist in filling demonstrated need for well-trained biostatisticians.
To develop biostatistical research programs responsive to the scientific problems encountered in public health and biomedicine.
To actively collaborate with investigators at UCLA and worldwide in the solution of health problems.
The Department of Biostatistics offers the Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degree; we have programs leading to the Master of Public Health and Doctor of Public Health degrees with specialization in Biostatistics. The master's degrees require the passing of a comprehensive examination together with course and grade requirements. The Graduate Division lists the detailed degree requirements for the
M.S.
and
Ph.D degrees
and for the
M.P.H.
and
Dr.P.H. degrees.
The Department doesn't have an undergraduate major. Doctoral students enrolled in the Ph.D. program must take the required biostatistics courses, electives, a sequence of
courses in the Department of Statistics, and four full courses in a field outside of biostatistics in a "methodological" science field. Many students choose epidemiology, HIV/AIDS or genetics; other fields are certainly possible. The Department has approximately 35 master's students and 25 doctoral students.
The NIH AIDS program awarded the Department of Biostatistics both a pre and postdoctoral training grant. There exist only a few such training grants in the United States. Reviewers noted the strong theoretical and applied statistics component and the important opportunities trainees would have to acquaint themselves with the superb clinical, laboratory and epidemiological resources at UCLA.