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Detailed Information

Program of Study

The Division of Biostatistics offers a program leading to a Ph.D. degree. The program is designed for students with strong undergraduate preparation in mathematics and trains students in biostatistical methodology, theory, and practice. Emphasis is placed on sound theoretical understanding of statistical principles, research in the development of applied methodology, and collaborative research with biomedical scientists and clinicians. In addition, students gain substantial training and experience in statistical computing and in the use of software packages. Courses in the program are offered in collaboration with the Department of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. The degree requirements, including dissertation research, are typically completed in five years beyond a bachelor’s degree.

Faculty members are engaged in a number of collaborative research projects at the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research, Marquette University’s College of Bioengineering, the Clinical and Translational Science Institute, the Center for Patient Care and Outcomes Research, the Human and Molecular Genetics Center, and the Cancer Center. Dissertation research topics in statistical methodology often evolve from such participation, and students usually become coauthors on medically oriented papers arising from these projects.

Research Facilities

The Division of Biostatistics is located in the Department of Population Health at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). The Medical College has extensive research laboratories and facilities available for faculty and student use. The Division has an up-to-date network of Sun workstations, PCs, and peripherals. The Division’s network is equipped with all leading statistical software and tools needed for the development of statistical methodology. The MCW libraries’ holdings are among the largest health sciences collections in the Midwest. Students also have access to the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee’s extensive library, and the Division maintains its own library of statistical journals, books, and monographs. The Epidemiology Data Service provides access to national data on health, health care and special clinical data sets collected locally. The Medical College is a repository for the National Center for Health Statistics. The Biostatistics program also houses the Biostatistics Consulting Service. This service affords students the opportunity to experience extensive biomedical research.

Financial Aid

Students are supported by fellowships for the first 18 months and then by research assistantships. Each includes tuition, stipend, and health insurance. The stipend for 2008–09 was $25,750 per year. The research assistantships provide students with the opportunity to gain experience in statistical consulting and collaborative research.

Living and Housing Costs

Many rental units are available in pleasant residential neighborhoods surrounding the Medical College. Housing costs begin at about $550 per month for a married couple or 2 students sharing an apartment. The usual stipend supports a modest standard of living.

Student Group

There are 525 degree-seeking graduate students, 715 residents and fellows, and 796 medical students at the Medical College. A low student-faculty ratio fosters individual attention and a close working relationship between students and faculty members. Graduates pursue academic positions and jobs in government and industry.

Location

Milwaukee has long been noted for its old-world image. Its many ethnic traditions, especially from Middle Europe, give the city this distinction. Cultural opportunities are numerous and include museums, concert halls, art centers, and theaters. Milwaukee has a well-administered government, a low crime rate, and excellent schools. It borders Lake Michigan and lies within commuting distance of 200 inland lakes. Outdoor activities may be pursued year-round.

The College

Founded in 1893, it became the Marquette University School of Medicine in 1913. It was reorganized in 1967 as an independent corporation and renamed the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1970. There are more than 1,300 faculty members. MCW is one of six organizations working in partnership on the Milwaukee Regional Medical Complex (MRMC) campus. Full-time students in any department may enroll in graduate courses in other departments and in programs of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and Marquette University without any increase in basic tuition. The College ranks in the top 34 percent of U.S. medical schools in National Institute of Health research funding.

Applying

Prerequisites include an undergraduate degree in mathematics or closely related fields, an overall grade point average of B or better, B average or better in mathematics and science, and an average of 60th percentile score on the quantitative and verbal sections of the GRE. Foreign students are also required to submit their TOEFL score. Applications for consideration need to be at the graduate school by February 15 but students are encouraged to complete applications by early January.

The Faculty and Their Research

• Ruta Bajorunaite, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Medical College of Wisconsin. Survival analysis.
• Okunseri, C., et al. (Bajorunaite, R.). Racial/ethnic disparities in the acceptance of Medicaid patients in dental practices. J. Publ. Health. Dent. 68(3):149–53, 2008.
• Bajorunaite, R. and Klein, J.P. Comparing failure probabilities in the presence of competing risks. J. Stat. Comput. Simulat. 78(10):951–66, 2008.
• John P. Klein, Professor and Director; Ph.D., Missouri–Columbia. Survival analysis. Elected member of the International Statistical Institute and fellow of A.S.A.
• Cohen, E.P., et al. (J. P. Klein). Captopril to mitigate chronic renal failure after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: A randomized controlled trial. International Journal of Radiation and Oncology Biology Physics 70(5):1546–51, 2008.
• Klein, J. P., and Zhang, M.J.. Guest editor introduction to issue on transplant statistics. Lifetime Data Anal. 14(4):377–8, 2008.
• Purushottam (Prakash) W. Laud, Professor; Ph.D., Missouri–Columbia. Bayesian statistical methods. Director of graduate programs and faculty biostatistician in the Center for Patient Care and Outcomes research.
• Schapira, M.M. et al.(Laud, P. W.). A framework for health numeracy: How patients use quantitative skills in health care. J. Health Comm. 13(5):501–17, 2008.
• Hanson, T., Johnson, W., and Laud, P. Semiparametric inference for survival models with step process covariates. Can. J. Stat. [accepted], 2008.
• Brent R. Logan, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Northwestern. Multiple comparison procedures. Serves as biostatistician for the Bone Marrow Transplantation Clinical Trials Network, an N.I.H. collaborative trials network.
• Howard, D.H., et al. (Logan, B.). Use of cost-effectiveness analysis to determine inventory size for a national cord blood bank. Med. Decis. Making 28(2):243–53, 2008.
• Logan, B. R., and Tamhane, A.C. Superiority inferences on individual endpoints following non-inferiority testing in clinical trials. Biometrical Journal 50(5):693–703, 2008.
• Aniko Szabo, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Memphis. Mathematical modeling of cancer screening and oncogenesis. Director of the Biostatistical Consulting Center.
• Brown, A. P., et al. (Szabo, A.). The risk of second primary malignancies up to three decades after the treatment of differentiated thyroid cancer. J. Clin. Endocrinal. Metabol. 93(2):504–15, 2008.
• Etzioni, R., et al. (Szabo, A.). Quantifying the role of PSA screening in the U.S. prostate cancer mortality decline. Cancer Causes and Control 19(2):175–81, 2008.
• Sergey Tarima, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Kentucky. Methods of using additional information in statistical estimation.
• Litzow, M., et al. (Tarima, S.) The outcome allogeneic stem cell transplantation for the treatment of therapy-related myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia varies considerably by risk factor: An observational study from the center for international blood and marrow transplant research (CIBMTR). Biol. Blood. Marrow Transplant. 14(2, suppl. 1):7, 2008.
• Klein, J.P., et al. (S. Tarima). SAS and R functions to compute pseudo-values for censored data regression. Computational Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 89(3):289–300, 2008.
• Tao Wang, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., North Carolina State. Statistical genetics. Joint appointment with the Human Molecular Genetics Center.
• Duquesnoy, R. et al. (Wang, T.). HLA Matchmaker-defined triplet matching is not associated with better survival rates of patients with class I HLA allele mismatched hematopoietic cell transplants from unrelated donors. Biol. Blood. Marrow Transplant. 14(9):1064–71, 2008.
• Wang, T.,Jacob, H., Ghosh, S., Wang, X.J., and Zeng, Z.B. A joint association test for multiple SNPs in genetic case-control studies. Genet. Epidemiol. 33(2):151–63, 2009.
• Mei-Jie Zhang, Professor; Ph.D., Florida State. Survival analysis.
• Eapen, M., et al. (Zhang, M.J.). Outcomes after HLA matched sibling transplantation or chemotherapy in children with acute lymphoblasticleukemia in a second remission after an isolated central nervous system relapse: a collaborative study of the Children’s Oncology Group and the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research. Leukemia 22(2):281–286, 2008.
• M.-J. Zhang, M.J. and Fine, J. Summarizing differences in cumulative incidence functions. Stat. Med. 27(24):4939–49, 2008.
• Kwang Woo Ahn, Assistant Professor, Ph.D., Iowa. Nonlinear time series, epidemiology, Markov chain Monte Carlo.
• Jennifer Le-Rademacher, Assistant Professor, Ph.D., Georgia. Symbolic data analysis.
• Daniel B. Rowe, Associate Professor, Ph.D., California, Riverside. Biophysics, biostatistics.
• Timothy L. McAuliffe, Professor, Ph.D., UCLA, Psychiatry, biostatistics.
• Adjunct Faculty
• Jay Beder, Professor; Ph.D., George Washington. Gaussian processes, design of experiments, applications to biology.
• Vytaras Brazauskas, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Texas at Dallas. Robust and nonparametric methods, actuarial science.
• Daniel Gervini, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Buenos Aires. Robustness, functional data analysis.
• Jugal Ghorai, Professor; Ph.D., Purdue. Nonparametric estimation, survival analysis, applications to meteorology.
• Eric Key, Professor; Ph.D., Cornell. Probability theory and stochastic processes, ergodic theory.
• Tom O’Bryan, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Michigan State. Empirical Bayes decision theory, mathematics education.
• Gil Walter, Professor Emeritus; Ph.D., Wisconsin–Madison. Applied mathematics, statistics.

Correspondence and Information

Division of Biostatistics
8701 Watertown Plank Road
Milwaukee, WI 53227
Telephone: 414-456-6513
Email: biostat@mcw.edu


Telephone: 414-456-8218
Email: gradschool@mcw.edu