Faculty and students from the School’s Department of Biostatistics turned out in record numbers recently to participate in the 2007 annual meeting of the Eastern North American Region (ENAR) of the International Biometric Society (IBS).  More than 1100 of ENAR’s 1380 members attended this year’s meeting on March 11-14 in Atlanta, Georgia.

The School of Public Health has a strong history of leadership in the society, with four School of Public Health alumni or faculty—including Bernard Greenberg, Jim Grizzle, Peter Imrey, and Gary Koch—having served as the society’s president.

Lisa LaVange, School alumna, professor of biostatistics and director of the Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center, serves as this year’s president.

Other ENAR leaders with ties to the School include:

• Eric Feuer, chief of statistical research and applications at the National Cancer Institute, is an alumnus who serves this year as president-elect.
  
  
• Amy Herring, associate professor, served as program chair for the meeting and is chair-elect of the regional advisory board.
  
  
• Biostatistics graduate Robert Lyles, now associate professor at Emory University, served as chair of local arrangements. 

Additional School of Public Health faculty involved in meeting planning or presentations were associate professors John Preisser and Lloyd Edwards; distinguished professors Joe Ibrahim and Danyu Lin; and Michael Kosorok, professor and chair of the department.

Among alumni and former faculty having major roles were John Bailer, DuBois Bowman, Chris Coffey, Peter Imrey, Keith Muller, Paul Rathouz, and Maura Stokes.

The Department of Biostatistics also garnered three distinguished student awards this year, including:

• Jon Gelfond (for “Proximity Model for eQTL Detection,” with Alumni Distinguished Professor Joe Ibrahim and Assistant Professor Fei Zou)
  
  
• Emma Huang (for “Efficient Association Mapping of Quantitative Trait Loci with Selective Genotyping” with Gillings Distinguished Professor Danyu Lin)
  
  
• Chris Slaughter (for “Bayesian Modeling of Embryonic Growth Using Latent Variables” with Associate Professor Amy Herring).   

IBS is the largest professional organization of biostatisticians in the world, drawing its 5800 members from more than 25 countries.

School of Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, (919) 966-7467, ramona_dubose@unc.edu.