Biostatistics & Epidemiology Faculty & Staff

Home • Independent Research • Research Collaborations • B&E Training

Faculty in the Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology conduct their own research in statistical methodology, lead clinical trials and carry out analyses of population-based data.  Faculty and staff also collaborate on a wide range of studies, providing expertise in study design and analysis to investigators in the School of Medicine, the Health Sciences Center, industry, government agencies, and foundations.  The collaborative projects range from basic science studies of cell signalling and gene expression to multi-center clinical trials and population-based epidemiological studies. Faculty and staff are also involved in teaching efforts across the School of Medicine and the University, including participation in the "Cells to Society" curriculum,  resident training programs, and the M.S. and M.P.H programs in the Department.

William A. Knaus, M.D. Telephone: 434-924-8753 : Email

  • Evelyn Troup Hobson Professor; Founding Chair, Department of Public Health Sciences
    Acting Director, Division of Biostatistics & Epidemiology
  • Expertise: An experienced academic physician educator/scientist with a record of accomplishments in developing innovative approaches to education, research, and health care services.
    ...more
  • Research Interests: William A. Knaus, M.D. is the Evelyn Troup Hobson Professor and founding Chair of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Virginia Health System.

    Dr. Knaus received his medical degree from West Virginia University School ...more

    Dr. Knaus also designed and successfully managed one of the largest and most influential clinical trials of physician decision-making, The SUPPORT (Study to Understand Prognoses, Preferences, and Outcomes from Treatment) Trial, ever conducted.

    Since 1996, in his capacity as Chair of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Virginia Health System, Dr. Knaus has designed and developed a new department within School of Medicine. He established Divisions of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Clinical Informatics, and Public Health Policy and Practice. The department developed and manages an integrated clinical and administrative data repository (CDR) to support research and management efforts throughout the School of Medicine and Health System.

    In 2007 a new Center for Public Health Genomics under the directorship of Dr. Steven Rich, formerly of Wake Forest University, was established at UVA in partnership with the Department.

    In addition to establishing NIH, Foundation, and corporate partnerships for the Department, Dr. Knaus continues his own research in novel decision support and medical software development for which he has been elected to The Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences.

Robert D. Abbott, M.P.H., A.M., Ph.D. Telephone: 434-924-1687 : Email

  • Professor
  • Research Interests:

    Survival analysis, nonparametric methods, quantile regression, resampling techniques, nonlinear regression, chronic disease epidemiology (atherosclerosis, stroke, vascular dementia, Alzheimer's disease, cognitive impairment, and Parkinson’s disease), and clinical trials methodology.

Viktor E. Bovbjerg, PhD MPH Telephone: 434-243-4874 : Email

  • Associate Professor
  • Research Interests: Social and environmental influences on health and health behavior, chronic disease prevention and control, health care outcomes and quality improvement, injury prevention and control, non-traditional applications of epidemiologic methods.
Wei-Min Chen, Ph.D. Telephone: 434-924-8298 : Email
  • Assistant Professor
  • Expertise: Statistical genetics including linkage and association gene mapping, generalized estimating equations (GEE), longitudinal data analysis
  • Research Interests: My research focuses on the design and statistical analysis of human gene mapping data. Recently, my research has focused on the development of methods for analyzing genome-wide SNP data in datasets that include thousands of individuals.
Mark R. Conaway, Ph.D. Telephone: 434-924-8510 : Email
  • Professor
  • Expertise: Design and analysis for clinical trials Statistical methods for animal models Longitudinal data
  • Research Interests: Dr. Conaway's areas of research interest include: missing data, design of phase I and phase II clinical trials, and developing reference norms.
Kelly K. Gurka, Ph.D., M.P.H. Telephone: 434-924-8586 : Email
  • Assistant Professor
  • Research Interests: Injury and occupational epidemiology. Maternal and child health epidemiology.
Matthew J. Gurka, Ph.D. Telephone: 434-924-8249 : Email
  • Assistant Professor
  • Research Interests: Longitudinal data analysis; linear mixed models; model selection techniques; diagnostic techniques for linear models; transformations; interim data and power analysis; general pediatric research; rehabilitation research; diabetes and obesity control
Paige P. Hornsby, Ph.D. Telephone: 434-924-8638 : Email
  • Assistant Professor
Brenda K. Lee Telephone: 434-924-8712 : Email
  • Administrative Assistant
Jae K. Lee, Ph.D. Telephone: 434-982-1033 : Email
  • Associate Professor
  • Research Interests:

    Dr. Lee received his PhD in statistical genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1995. Before coming to the University of Virginia, he had worked at the Center for Computational and Experimental Genomics of the University of Southern California and at the Bioinformatics Group of the Laboratory of Molecular Pharmacology, a division of the National Cancer Institute, NIH. Dr. Lee has extensive experience in statistical research in molecular genetics and bioinformatics. He has worked on statistical approaches to genetic population inference, DNA structure analysis, high-throughput gene chip technologies, and linkage association study for human genetic diseases. He has also applied and developed computational statistical techniques to attack various challenging problems in molecular biology and cancer genetics. This includes anticancer gene-drug discovery on high throughput gene expression data and linkage association study for identifying quantitative trait loci of pedigree data. Dr. Lee's current interest is in the analysis of microarray gene expression data. Dr. Lee serves as Director of the UVA GeneChip/Microarray Bioinformatics Core (GMB), which provides statistical and bioinformatics support for the UVA researchers' microarray studies and has been developing the GeneX-Va database/analysis system .
Lei Liu, Ph.D. Telephone: 434-982-3364 : Email
  • Assistant Professor
  • Research Interests: I am a biostatistician with a major interest in health economics and health services research. I am broadly interested in modeling the interplay of medical costs, hospitalizations, and survival. I propose several joint random effects (frailty) models of these entities. Recently, I also develop an interest in modeling longitudinal medical cost. This research is currently supported by an R03 grant from Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality.
Jennie Z. Ma, Ph.D. Telephone: 434-243-5778 : Email
  • Associate Professor
  • Research Interests: Survival Analysis; longitudinal studies; statistical genetic association and linkage analysis; latent variable analysis and mixture modeling; bioinformatics; clinical trial design; meta-analysis
John M. O'Quigley, M.Sc., Ph.D. Telephone: 434-924-8222 : Email
  • Professor
James T. Patrie, M.S. Telephone: 434-924-8576 : Email
  • Senior Biostatistician
  • Research Interests: As a general statistical consultant, I provide statistical support to research personnel at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center. This includes providing statistical assistance regarding study design, data analysis, manuscript preparation, and grant preparation. My areas of expertise include: experimental design, and longitudinal data analysis.
Gina R. Petroni, Ph.D. Telephone: 434-924-8363 : Email
  • Professor
  • Research Interests: Dr. Petroni's areas of research interest include: clinical trial design, cancer clinical trials and survival analysis, oncology clinical trials and oncology vaccine trials . Dr. Petroni has a joint appointment in the Department of Statistics at the University of Virginia and is the Director of the Biostatistic Core for the UVa Cancer Center.
Mark E. Smolkin, M.S. Telephone: 434-982-1032 : Email
  • Biostatistician III
George J. Stukenborg, Ph.D., M.A. Telephone: 434-924-8649 : Email
  • Associate Professor
  • Expertise: 
    • Observational research design
    • Quantitative methods in population health
  • Research Interests:
    • Mortality risk adjustment methods
    • Administrative data base studies
    • Comorbid disease measurement
Hongkun Wang, Ph.D. Telephone: 434-924-8514 : Email
  • Assistant Professor
  • Research Interests: Survival Analysis; Medical Cost Analysis; Quality Adjusted Lifetime Analysis; Analysis of Longitudinal Data; Linear Measurement Error Models; Design and Analysis of Clinical Trials.
Xin Qun Wang, M.S. Telephone: 434-924-8519 : Email
  • Senior MS Biostatistician
  • Expertise: I have been employed as a Master’s level biostatistician here at University of Virginia since 1997. As a biostatistician, I provide statistical support to medical researchers at UVA, including study design, data analysis, and grant and manuscript preparation.
Guofen Yan, Ph.D. Telephone: 434-982-6422 : Email
  • Assistant Professr
  • Expertise:  Specialty Areas Applied to Medical Studies

    Design and analysis of Phase III clinical trials;

    Linear mixed-effects models for longitudinal data, including joint modeling of longitudinal and cross-sectional associations between clinical markers;

    Survival data analysis: recurrent events using counting process, Cox time-dependent regression, Cox regression models incorporating nonparametric smoothing splines, and over-dispersed Poisson regression models;

    Nonparametric regression and nonparametric density estimation.

  • Research Interests: Bayesian methodology; meta-analysis; longitudinal data analysis; multilevel (hierarchical) models.

    Dr. Guofen Yan has been in the Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology since Fall 2005. Before joining UVA, she had worked in the Department of Quantitative Health Sciences (formerly Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology) at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (CCF) for many years. There she collaborated closely with nephrologists in kidney and dialysis-related studies, and had been a primary statistician for several large-scale clinical trials for which CCF served as a Data Coordinating Center, including the Hemodialysis Study (HEMO), the NIH-funded full-scale randomized multi-center clinical trial. Dr. Yan's interests are in both methodological and collaborative research, including design and analysis of phase III clinical trials, longitudinal data analysis, meta-analysis, multilevel modeling, and Bayesian parametric and semi-parametric methods for clinical studies.