VCU Biostatistics Department

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VCU Biostatistics Department

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Biostatistics Department Several faculty members hold joint appointments in other departments or centers. The department offers M.S. and Ph.D.

The Department of Biostatistics is housed in the VCU School of Medicine and is committed to excellence in providing a graduate training program, conducting multidisciplinary collaborative biomedical research and developing new statistical methods. The Department includes 23 full-time faculty members who have expertise in data management; analysis of high-throughput genomic, proteomic, and metabolomic data; methodologies for designing studies of mixtures of drugs or chemicals; dose-finding and adaptive designs for Phase I studies; linear and non-linear modeling of longitudinal data for epidemiological studies and clinical trials. Strong ties exist between the Department of Biostatistics and departments and centers within the School of Medicine as well as within the Schools of Dentistry, Pharmacy, Nursing, and Allied Health. Faculty members belong to multidisciplinary teams in many federally funded translational research projects across the university, including studies of genes related to hepatocellular carcinoma; chronic allograft nephropathy; the Massey NCI designated cancer center; traumatic brain injury model systems; sedation and ventilator effects in hospitalized patients; epigenomics of leukemias, lymphomas, and blood stem cells; childhood obesity, and sexual maturation. Faculty members teach classes and publish an average of two methodological publications per year in statistical or related journals and seven collaborative publications in a wide variety of biomedical journals. They also collaborate on an average of four new grant applications and four new grant awards per year. The faculty members are currently 66% externally funded through collaborative research on projects in other schools and departments at VCU. These collaborative research efforts stimulate the development of biostatistical methodology as our faculty members apply theoretical methods to the analysis of biomedical data. Faculty members also serve as reviewers and editors for professional journals, serve on NIH study sections, and participate in international multidisciplinary collaborative research. programs in biostatistics, a Ph.D. in genomic biostatistics, and an M.S. in biostatistics with a concentration in clinical research and biostatistics. The majority of the graduate students are supported through collaborative projects and partnerships with industry. The department has a National Research Service Award pre-doctoral training program funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). The purpose of this award is to train students to develop analytic methods for the study of chemical mixtures and analysis of toxicogenomic data. One faculty member also has a regular research grant funded in this area by the NIEHS.

10/30/2026

Join us Friday, November 6, for a talk by Dr. Shounak Chattopadhyay from the University of Virginia!

🗣Topic: Inferring Synergistic and Antagonistic Interactions in Mixtures of Exposures
⏰Time: 12:00pm EST
📍Location: One Capitol Square (In Person)
💻Also Available viz Zoom (Registration Required)
https://tinyurl.com/23tyu6nh

10/22/2026

🥕Who knew vegetables could bring out the competitive side of our faculty?! 🥦

Earlier this month, our Biostatistics faculty came together for their annual Faculty Retreat to discuss important topics and plan for the future of our department. But before diving into the serious discussions, we had to settle one very important question: Who could build the ultimate vegetable-powered race car?! 🏆

Welcome to the FIRST-EVER Biostatistics Vegetable Derby!!!!! 🥬🚗

Faculty members were randomly assigned to teams and given just 25 minutes to transform vegetables and assorted materials into gravity-powered racing machines. No pushing, rotating wheels required, and only two chances to race to victory!

The competition brought out some seriously creative engineering, plenty of laughs, and a surprising amount of competitive spirit. It was wonderful to watch our faculty let loose, embrace their inner kids, and get very invested in winning bragging rights! 😂

🏆 And the winners are...

🥇 Derby Champions: Dipankar, Roy, Na, Shanshan
🎨 Most Creative Design: Yongyun, Bob, LK

While the goal was to see whose veggie vehicle could travel the farthest, the real purpose went beyond the finish line. This activity encouraged collaboration, trust, active listening, and the free exchange of ideas. After all, the best results often come when we bring different perspectives together!

Who says professional development can't involve a few carrots, some friendly competition, and a whole lot of fun? 💛🖤

10/21/2026

Our next seminar speaker, Dr. Himel Mallick from Weill Cornell University Medical College, will be presenting this Friday, October 23!

🗣Topic: Bayesian Multimodal AI for Scalable Biomedical Discovery
⏰Time: 12:00pm EST
📍Location: One Capitol Square (In Person)
💻Zoom Option Available (Registration Required)
https://tinyurl.com/mt5a7tkd

10/21/2026

A big thank you to everyone who joined us earlier in the semester for our New Student Welcome! 🎉🎉

It was wonderful to bring our department community together to welcome our newest students, kick off the year, and celebrate this year's Biostatistics Student Research Symposium (BSRS) winners and their accomplishments.

We are excited to have our new students as part of Biostatistics and look forward to all that lies ahead. Here's to a great year!!!!!

10/02/2026

Join us next Friday, October 9, for an exciting talk by Dr. Xijin Ge from South Dakota State University!

🗣Topic: Leveraging AI in Research: Success and Failure Stories
⏰Time: 12:00pm EST
📍Location: One Capitol Square (In Person)
💻Zoom Option Available (Registration Required)
https://tinyurl.com/4zau6y78

10/01/2026

What a great day of research, presentations, and celebrating our students! 🎉

The Biostatistics Student Research Symposium (BSRS) gives our students the chance to present the research they’ve been working on throughout the summer, share their work with the department, and gain valuable experience presenting to an audience of faculty and peers.

We had another impressive group of presentations this year, and we’re excited to recognize the students who earned the top spots after review by our judges:

🏆 Congratulations to our 2026 BSRS Award Recipients!

🥇 1st Place: Darya Shokouhi Niaki
🥈 2nd Place: Sam Soon
🥉 3rd Place Tie: Nusma Rahman
🥉 3rd Place Tie: Sabina Yeasmin

A big congratulations to all of our students who participated! Your hard work and dedication made this year’s symposium a success, and we’re proud to see the research you’ve been working so hard on come to life. 👏

09/15/2026

We're excited to welcome Dr. Abhirup Datta on Friday, September 25, for his seminar!

🗣Topic: Neural Network Based Variational Inference for Cutting Feedback During Uncertainty Propagation
⏰Time: 12:00pm EST
📍Location: One Capitol Square (In Person)
💻Zoom Option Available (Registration Required)
https://tinyurl.com/sdyk4zsj

09/09/2026

We're excited to welcome Dr. Siyuan Guo to the department as our newest Assistant Professor! Dr. Guo also joins the Biostatistics Shared Resource (BSSR) at Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr. Guo comes to VCU from Duke University School of Medicine, where he worked as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, focusing primarily on prostate cancer clinical trial research. He earned his Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the University of South Carolina.

We’re thrilled to have Dr. Guo join our department and look forward to all that he’ll bring to VCU!

Welcome to VCU family, Dr. Guo! 💛🖤

08/31/2026

Join us Friday, September 18, for an exciting talk by Dr. Yuqi Gu from Columbia University!

🗣Topic: Deep Discrete Encoders: Identifiable Deep Generative Models for Rich Data with Discrete Latent Layers
⏰Time: 12:00pm EST
📍Location: One Capitol Square (In Person)
💻Also Available via Zoom (Registration Required)
https://tinyurl.com/59f47yj3

08/28/2026

🍂Our Fall Seminar Series is back!🍂

We're kicking off the fall semester with our first seminar speaker, Dr. Li Chen from the University of Florida, on Friday, September 11 at 12:00pm via Zoom!

🗣Topic: Bayesian Inference for Cell Type-Specific Regulatory Networks from Single-Cell Multiome Data
⏰Time: 12:00pm EST
💻Location: Zoom (Registration Required)
https://tinyurl.com/uhjz3ey8

Address

One Capitol Square, 830 E Main St
Richmond, VA
23298

Website

http://www.biostatistics.vcu.edu/

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