Statistics and the Life Sciences: Creating a Healthier World

November 15, 2019

Statistics and the Life Sciences: Creating a Healthier World is a one-day conference as part of the Boston University Dean’s Symposia series.

Overview

We are globally connected like never before, in nearly all aspects of our lives. While this fact has numerous implications, from the perspective of public health it leaves us uniquely poised to potentially overcome major challenges that have to date been out of reach. These include aging traits such as cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease, pulmonary disease such as COPD and asthma, and cardiovascular diseases. Significant progress on any and all of these problems will be data intensive, with statistics a key element at the core. The goal of this workshop is to stage the statistical challenges and progress towards solutions in a handful of emerging and mission-critical areas of the health sciences with global impact. Specifically, focus will be on the following three areas: digital health, machine learning in causal inference, and networks for public health. Ultimately, the idea is to bring together a gathering of representatives from statistics and related domain areas, in an agile and interactive format, and use a web-based dissemination platform to bring broad visibility to these topics.


Agenda

OPENING REMARKS

Sandro Galea, Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor, Boston University School of Public Health

Robert A. Brown, President, Boston University

Josée Dupuis, Professor and Chair, Department of Biostatistics, Boston University School of Public Health

PLENARY SPEAKERS

Susan Murphy, Professor of Statistics, Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University and, Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Joseph Lehar, VP Data Science, Oncology, The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, Boston University, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Bioengineering & Bioinformatics, Boston University

PART ONE: DIGITAL HEALTH: INTEGRATING WEARABLES, SOCIAL MEDIA, AND MORE

Keynote

Vadim Zipunnikov, Assistant Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Panelists:

Pei Wang, Associate Professor, Genetics and Genomics Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Greg Hather, Senior Principal Statistician, Takeda Pharmaceuticals

Margrit Betke, Professor and Data Science Faculty Fellow, Department of Computer Science, Boston University

Moderator: Elaine Nsoesie, Assistant Professor and Data Science Faculty Fellow, Boston University School of Public Health

PART TWO: MACHINE LEARNING IN CAUSAL INFERENCE

Beth Ann Griffin, Senior Statistician, Co-Director RAND Center for Causal Inference, RAND Corporation

Susan Gruber, Principal, Putnam Data Sciences

Stefan Wager, Assistant Professor of Operations, Information, and Technology, Stanford Graduate School of Business

Laura Balzer, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, Department of Biostatistics & Epidemiology, School of Public Health & Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts – Amherst

Moderator: Chanmin Kim, Assistant Professor, Boston University School of Public Health

PART THREE: NETWORKS FOR PUBLIC HEALTH

Key Lecture

David Dunson, Arts and Sciences Professor of Statistical Science, Duke University

Panelists

Tian Zheng, Professor, Department of Statistics, Columbia University

Neha Gondal, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Boston University

Ali Shojaie, Associate Professor, Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington

Moderator: Jacob Bor, Assistant Professor, Boston University School of Public Health

CLOSING REMARKS

Bhramar Mukherjee, John D. Kalbfleisch Collegiate Professor of Biostatistics and Chair of Biostatistics, The University of Michigan School of Public Health

Eric Kolaczyk, Professor and Data Science Faculty Fellow, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University

Event Type

Host

Boston University, School of Public Health

Sponsor

Boston University Department of Mathematics and Statistics
American Statistical Association
Institute for Mathematical Statistics
National Institute of Statistical Sciences

Location

Hiebert Lounge
72 East Concord Street
Boston
,
Massachusetts
,
United States
Statistics and the Life Sciences: Creating a Healthier World
Boston University, School of Public Health