The CRHC’s Biostatistics Core includes experienced faculty with accomplished research funding and publication records. The PhD faculty provide statistical and design expertise, including design of trials, cluster-randomized studies, surveys, and epidemiologic studies; development and calculation of sample size and power estimates; and development and execution of statistical analysis plans.
Faculty
Kaleab Abebe, PhD
Director, Center for Research on Health Care Data Center
Dr. Abebe's collaborative research focuses on design, conduct, and analysis of multicenter, randomized, controlled trials (RCTs), namely in polycystic kidney disease (PKD). He leads the data coordinating centers (DCCs) for the TAME-PKD clinical trial and the STERIO-SCD trial, and leads the statistical and data management cores for clinical trials in gestational diabetes (GDM2 Study; PI: Davis), heart failure and depression (Hopeful Heart; PI: Rollman), and HIV (DIPY and DC-04 studies; PI: Riddler).
(Joyce) Chung-Chou H. Chang, PhD
Director of PhD Faculty Affairs
Dr. Chang has a wide range of interests in theoretical and applied statistics, including time-to-event (survival) and longitudinal data analysis, missing data (competing risks and informative dropout), causal effect modeling (propensity score and marginal structural modeling), design and analysis of observational studies and clinical trials, design and analysis of studies of biomarkers in risk prediction, dynamic prediction, and machine learning techniques. As the lead statistician or consulting statistician, she has helped investigators throughout the University develop research protocols and data analysis plans for biomedical studies and has overseen the data management and analyses. Dr. Chang encourages and promotes using the most up-to-date statistical methods. She has applied these methods to a range of investigations, including research on aging, HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, heart diseases, liver transplantation, health services research, and acute illness.
Yi-Fan Chen, PhD
Dr. Chen has been a biostatistician with extensive experience in collaborative research and hands-on data analysis since 2013. She is also interested in machine learning, particularly tree-based modeling for subgroup identification, the design and analysis of clinical trials, and meta-analysis.
Cristina Murray-Krezan, PhD
Associate Director, Clinical Trials
Co-Director, Center for Clinical Trials and Data Coordination
Dr. Murray-Krezan’s clinical research interests are wide and varied, with a focus in recent years on substance use disorders, as well as interventions to improve the health and well-being of marginalized, underserved, and underrepresented populations. She also has an interest in women’s health. She has been involved in clinical trials research since 2007 and has an affinity for patient-centered trials with complex behavioral and medical interventions. Additionally, Dr. Murray-Krezan is dedicated to the success, growth, and integration of data coordination in multi-site clinical trials and observational studies. This includes research in the areas of novel or best study designs, recruitment and retention methods, and integration of pragmatic approaches for study outcomes. Statistical research interests include developing new methods to identify and correct for informative drop-out in the survival analytic framework.
Scott Rothenberger, PhD
Dr. Rothenberger's statistical interests include time series methods, state-space modeling, functional data analysis and the analysis of functional correlations. More recently, he has developed an interest in the design, analysis, and data coordination of clinical trials. He has collaborated on studies in areas such as sleep medicine, chronobiology, pregnancy care, periprosthetic joint infection, and mood and anxiety disorders.
Tianxiu Wang, PhD
Dr. Wang has provided statistical support to investigators in health behaviors and community health studies, psychology, health policy, and pediatrics. She is interested in the design and analysis of clinical trials, survival analysis with a focus on accommodating competing risks, propensity score analysis, multiple imputation technique to handle missing data, and measurement invariance testing in psychological and developmental research.
Jonathan Yabes, PhD
Dr. Yabes collaborates with investigators in the Schools of Health Sciences on diverse clinical research projects in areas such as renal disease, hematology, and pediatrics. His research has focused on the analysis of large administrative databases and the design, conduct, and analysis of clinical trials. He is involved in health services research of urologic diseases using the SEER-Medicare data and serves as a biostatistician in trials on insomnia, palliative care, and critical care. His methodological interest includes survival and competing risks-regression methods, analysis of longitudinal data, missing data techniques, and joint modeling.
Lan Yu, PhD
Dr. Yu's research has focused on applying advanced psychometric theories such as item-response theory and structural equation modeling to health-related outcomes. She has been the lead psychometrician for the NIH Roadmap Initiative, Patient-Reported Outcome Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Pittsburgh research site since 2007. Her research interests include large survey data, secondary data analysis, psychometrics, and item-bank development for various patient-reported outcomes.