Congratulations Ron Brookmeyer on receiving the 2016 Karl E. Peace Award for Outstanding Statistical Contributions for the Betterment of Society from the American Statistical Association.

The Karl E. Peace Award for Outstanding Statistical Contributions for the Betterment of Society, established in 2012, recognizes statisticians who have made substantial contributions to the statistical profession and to society in general. The award was established by Christopher K. Peace, son of Karl E. Peace, on behalf of the Peace family to honor the life work of his father.

Congratulations to Marc Suchard on being elected a Fellowship in the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. Fellowship is a way of honoring the outstanding research and professional contributions of our members, contributions which help keep IMS in a leading role in the field of statistics and probability.

Each newly elected Fellow will be welcomed and presented with a plaque during the IMS Presidential Address and Awards Ceremony during the World Congress in Probability and Statistics, July 11-15, 2016 in Toronto:  
https://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/16-17/WC2016/index.html

Masters in Biostatistics Rated #1 Job by Fortune Magazine

http://fortune.com/2016/03/21/best-worst-graduate-degrees-jobs-2016/

Priscilla Yen, PhD 2016, candidate in the Department of Biostatistics, was selected by a panel of distinguished judges as the winner of the $5,000 grand prize, courtesy of the Breslow Student Fellowship Fund. As a finalist, she also received $1,000 from Molina Healthcare, which co-sponsored the competition. The award was presented to her at the 42nd Annual Breslow Distinguished Lecture.

Two NIH Projects awarded to Dr. Grace Hyun Kim

1) R21 NIH-NHLBI: Kim (PI) :: 8/15/15-7/31/2017 :: Purpose: Prediction of IPF Progression Using HRCT Imaging Patterns The goal of this project is that quantitative imaging phenotypes determined either from single time points or from texture transitions occurring short-interval sequential time points, used alone or in multivariate model can predict disease progression in advance of standard clinical indicator of deterioration.

2) U01 NIH-NCI ; McNitt-Gray (contact PI), Kim, Goldin, Brown (Co-PIs) :: 05/01/14-04/30/17 :: Purpose: Quantitative CT Imaging for Response Assessment When Using Dose Reduction Methods The goal of this project is to investigate the effects of radiation dose reduction techniques used in CT imaging on quantitative measures used in response assessment of patients in clinical trials.

Dr. Damla Senturk has been awarded with a R01 grant from NIH-NIDDK. This 4-year biostatistics methodology grant ("Modeling Time-Dynamic Multilevel Outcomes in Patients on Dialysis”) is the renewal of her past 4-year R01 grant on developing novel biostatistics methods for the United States Renal Data System (USRDS). The grant also includes collaborators from UC Irvine and includes providing guidance in developing patient-level intervention strategies in the US dialysis population as well as dialysis facility/care provider level quality improvement among its long term goals.

Robin Jeffries, UCLA Biostatistics alumna and new faculty at CSU, Chico is featured by the university for helping develop a cross-disciplinary data science program. Read the full feature here

Biostatistics faculty Drs. Damla Senturk, Donatello Telesca and Catherine Sugar have been awarded a $1.6 million four-year R01 grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Heath, to develop methodologies for longitudinal functional data ("A Unified Longitudinal Functional Data Framework for the Analysis of Complex Biomedical Data"). The major goal of the project is to develop a comprehensive holistic theory and methodology for the analysis of longitudinal functional data with applications spanning psychiatry, neurology and public health.

A large team of researchers including Biostatistics faculty Drs. Catherine Sugar and Damla Senturk from SIStat, UCLA Biostatistics core in the Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior, are participating in a new nationwide, multi-center study of preschool and school-aged children with autism spectrum disorders to identify non-invasive biological markers - or biomarkers - that could help physicians diagnose and track the disorders as well as assess treatments in autism patients.The four-year study is the first large-scale attempt to look for these biomarkers in children with the disorder. Supported by a $2 million grant from the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, the project is part of a $28 million initiative by the National Institutes of Health.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/ucla-to-join-30-million-nationwide-search-for-biomarkers-for-autism

Congratulations to Sheng Wu on being awarded the Distinguished Paper Award at the 2015 WNAR Conference.