Committees

STEERING COMMITTEE

Organizing Committee

Supporting Team

  • Tracy Burke, University of Connecticut
  • Courtney Trzasko, University of Connecticut
  • Heeju Lim (Webmaster), University of Connecticut

Dr. Ming-Hui Chen, University of Connecticut

Dr. Ming-Hui Chen Dr. Ming-Hui Chen is Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor and Head of the Department of Statistics at the University of Connecticut (UConn). He was elected to Fellow of International Society for Bayesian Analysis in 2016, Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 2007, Fellow of American Statistical Association in 2005. He also received the University of Connecticut AAUP Research Excellence Award in 2013, the UConn College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) Excellence in Research Award in the Physical Sciences Division in 2013, the University of Connecticut Alumni Association's University Award for Faculty Excellence in Research and Creativity (Sciences) in 2014, and ICSA Distinguished Achievement Award in 2020. He has published over 428 statistics and biostatistics methodological and medical research papers in mainstream statistics, biostatistics, and medical journals. He has also published five books including two advanced graduate-level books on Bayesian survival analysis and Monte Carlo methods in Bayesian computation. He has supervised or been supervising 37 PhD students. He served as President of the International Chinese Statistical Association (ICSA) in 2013, Program Chair and Publication Officer of SBSS of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and the ASA Committee on Nomination for 2016-2017 to nominate candidates for ASA President/Vice President. Currently, he serves as the 2022 JSM Program Chair, Past President of the New England Statistical Society (nestat.org), Co Editor-in-Chief of Statistics and Its Interface, inaugurated Co Editor-in-Chief of New England Journal of Statistics in Data Science, and an Associate Editor of JASA, JCGS, and LIDA.

Dr. Kun Chen, University of Connecticut

Dr. Kun Chen Kun Chen is a Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Connecticut (UConn) and a Research Fellow at the Center for Population Health, UConn Health Center. He has been a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) since 2022 and an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) since 2016. His research mainly focuses on large-scale multivariate statistical learning, statistical machine learning, and healthcare analytics. He has extensive interdisciplinary research experience in several fields, including ecology, biology, agriculture, and population health. Dr. Chen has graduated with over ten PhDs and received Recognition for Teaching Excellence at UConn multiple times. He has also been active in professional services. In particular, he was a core member in establishing the New England Statistical Society (NESS) in 2017 and served as its secretary until 2021. Currently, he serves as the Program Chair for the ASA Section on Statistical Computing and Vice-President for the ASA Connecticut Chapter.

Dr. Chen received his B.Econ. in Finance and Dual B.S. in Computer Science & Technology from the University of Science & Technology of China in 2003, M.S. in Statistics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2007, and Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Iowa in 2011. Before joining UConn, he was on the faculty of Kansas State University from 2011 to 2013.

Dr. Jeff Palmer, Pfizer

Dr. Jeff Palmer Jeff Palmer has been a statistics group head leading early clinical development in rare diseases at Pfizer for the past 5 years. Prior to Pfizer he had worked for over ten years with various other pharma and consulting companies supporting mainly rare diseases, oncology, and neurology. Jeff received his MS in statistics from the University of Chicago and conducted his doctoral research in statistics at Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Yang Song, Vertex

Dr. Yang Song Dr. Yang Song is currently Executive Director, Biostatistics Group Head for Pipeline Development, at Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., leading biostatistics teams supporting multiple rare disease pipeline development projects. Prior to joining Vertex, he was with Merck for nearly 10 years, rotated through its PA, Beijing, and NJ global sites, with increasing responsibilities for global drug development across multiple therapeutic areas. He also worked with Johnson & Johnson for oncology drug development early in his career. His research interests include rare disease clinical trial methodology, real world evidence, data integration, optimal clinical development strategy, statistical issues in oncology clinical trials, biomarker endpoints, and subgroup analyses. He is a member of the ASA Biopharmaceutical Scientific Working Group on Real World Evidence. Yang received his Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Dr. Rui (Sammi) Tang, Servier

Dr. Rui (Sammi) Tang Dr. Rui (Sammi) Tang is an innovative, results-oriented pharmaceutical leader with an established track record of building, launching and supporting high performing teams, collaborating across organization lines and developing innovative trials design options and quantitative solutions that capitalize on opportunities to produce optimal, cost-effective results. She is currently the VP, Global Head of Biometrics at Servier Pharmaceuticals.

Prior to join Servier she was the Biostatistics Therapeutic Area Head for multiple teams at Shire Pharmaceuticals including oncology, Transplants, Ophthalmology and prematurity neonates and has worked at several other organizations, including Vertex, Amgen, Mayo Clinical and Merck. At Amgen, she served as the biostatistics lead of Companion Diagnostics and the Global Statistics Lead for multiple oncology clinical programs from early phase to late phase. Sammi has great experience in CDRH, CBER, CDER, health Canada, EMA and Asian regulatory agencies interactions. Sammi’s research interests are primarily in the area of adaptive clinical trial design and biomarker subgroup related statistical issues in precision medicine. She has authored more than 50 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals on methodology, study design, data analysis and reporting and is a co-inventor of several patents. Besides her daily work, she actively promotes data science through many of her volunteer activities: Sammi is co-founder of DahShu which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, founded to promote research and education in data sciences with almost 5000 members internationally. She is leading teams in the Innovative design scientific working group (IDSWG) of oncology drug development and small population working group for rare disease statistical methodology development. She is also an active member in ASA(American Statistics Association) and ICSA(International Chinese Statistics Association) to serve the biostatistics and data science professional community.

Sammi graduated from the University of Michigan Technology University with a PhD in statistics Genetics.

Dr. Richard Zhang, Pfizer

Richard Zhang Richard Zhang is the Statistics Group Lead for late phase clinical development in rare diseases at Pfizer. He has been in the pharmaceutical industry for over twenty years with exposure to hundreds of clinical trials spanning multiple therapeutical areas: Neuroscience, Pain, Rheumatology, Endocrine and IEM. He has extensive knowledge and experience in regulatory interactions and submissions. His research interests include innovative trial design, real world evidence, meta-analysis, data mining and modeling. Richard received his PhD in statistics from the University of Kentucky.

Dr. Yingwen Dong, Sanofi

Yingwen Dong Yingwen Dong is the Global Head of Biostatistics in Rare Diseases and Rare Blood Disorders at Sanofi. Prior to this role, she served as the Deputy Global Head of Oncology Biostatistics in late phase at Sanofi. She has over 16 years of clinical development experience in pharmaceutical industry in multiple therapeutic areas including neurology, oncology, rare diseases and rare blood disorders. Her research interests are in the area of innovative clinical trial design and its application. She currently serves as ICSA representative on 2024 JSM programming committee, and the steering committee member for 2024 ASA biopharmaceutical section regulatory-industry statistical workshop. She received her Ph.D in statistics from University of Minnesota.

Dr. Haiying Wang, University of Connecticut

Haiying Wang HaiYing Wang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Connecticut. He was an Assistant Professor in statistics at the University of New Hampshire from 2013 to 2017. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Statistics at the University of Missouri in 2013, and his M.S. from the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2006. His research interests include informative subdata selection for big data, model selection, model averaging, measurement error models, and semi-parametric regression.

Dr. Andy Chi, Takeda

Dr. Andy Chi Andy Chi currently serves as Executive director of Statistics and Quantitative Sciences (SQS), Data Sciences Institute (DSI) at Takeda. He is a member of DSI Leadership team (LT) and SQS management team (MT), supporting development and commercialization of Takeda Oncology Portfolio. He has 18 years of drug development experience, and has been strong advocate for innovative trial design and quantitative decision making using diverse trial types and data sources in clinical trials, from Academia and RWD/RWE. Andy received his MS in biometry from University of Texas, Houston, and PhD in Medical Science from University of South Florida.

Dr. Ran Duan, Vertex​

Dr. Ran Duan Ran Duan is currently the Director of biostatistics at Vertex Pharmaceuticals oversee multiple indications. Before join Vertex, Ran worked at Angitia, Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease and Eli Lilly and Company, where she supported the clinical development in multiple therapeutic areas including Bone disease, neurology, ophthalmology, and diabetes programs. She is an active member of the ASA Gene and Cell therapy working group. Her research interests include the innovative trial design for gene and cell therapy, rare disease, RWE generation and digital solutions for health care.

Dr. Roee Gutman, Brown University

Dr. Roee Gutman Dr. Roee Gutman is a Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at Brown University. His areas of expertise are causal inference, file linkage in the absence of unique identifiers, missing data, Bayesian data analysis and their application to big data sources in health services research. He has vast experience in analysing many types of secondary datasets from various sources (e.g. Medicare claims data, registries, VA health data), as well as data collected through large pragmatic randomized trials. Dr. Gutman has been the principal investigator of multiple NSF, NIH and PCORI grants and is the lead statistician on NIH, PCORI and VA grants. Recently, he received ISPOR Health Economics Outcomes and Research - Methodology Award and he was ASA/NSF/BLS Senior Research Fellow.

Dr. Hao Li, Boehringer Ingelheim

Hao Li Dr. Li currently holds the position of Principal Clinical Data Scientist at Boehringer Ingelheim. In her current role, Dr. Li leads a Biostatistics and Data Science development team as the Product Owner for clinical portfolios developed for rare disease indications in inflammation. Dr. Li's academic credentials include a Master of Science (M.S.) and a Doctorate (Ph.D.) in Statistics, both earned from the University of Connecticut, Storrs. She achieved these degrees in December 2017 and August 2018, respectively. Beyond her work at Boehringer Ingelheim, Dr. Li actively contributes to the broader scientific community by serving as a reviewer for several academic journals and extending her work to publications.

Dr. Junxiang Luo, Moderna

Junxiang Luo PhD in Biostatistics, Sr. director of biostatistics, rare disease TA leader in Moderna with enriched 18 years’ experience in biopharmaceutical industry for clinical trial design, study implementation, NDA/BLA submission, and regulatory interaction across multiple TAs.

Dr. Susie Sinks, Biogen

Dr. Susie Sinks Dr. Susie Sinks is currently a Director in Development Statistics at Biogen, where she has served as program lead in neuromuscular, multiple sclerosis and immunology therapeutic areas. Before joining Biogen in 2019, Susie worked in the FDA over 5 years for the Division of Metabolic and Endocrinology Products (DMEP) with specialty in diabetes and metabolic statistical review after receiving a Ph.D. in Biostatistics from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research interests include missing data, surrogacy modeling, benefit and risk assessment.

Dr. Lin Wang, Insmed

Lin Wang Dr. Lin Wang currently serves as the Vice President and Head of Biometrics at Insmed. Prior to joining Insmed, She spent more than 17 years at Sanofi where she held positions of increasing responsibility, including as Global Biostatistics Head for Rare Diseases and Rare Blood Disorders. Lin has extensive clinical development experience in all stage of clinical development from pre-IND, global NDA/MAA submissions to approvals across multiple diseases for small, large molecules and gene therapies. Her research interests include rare disease clinical trial design and analysis methodology, count data, adaptive design. Lin earned her Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Xin Wang, Bristol Myers Squibb

Xin Wang Dr. Xin Wang is Senior Director in BMS leading Cell Therapy Breyanzi Franchise Biometrics Team. Xin received her Ph.D in Statistics from Northwestern University, since then she has 16+ years of experience in pharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining BMS in 2021, Xin was TA Lead of Rheumatology at AbbVie where she held positions with increasing responsibilities with 5 years as people manager. Xin has led the Rheumatology statistics team with significant contributions to the submission and approval of Rheumatology indications in Rinvoq and Humira. Prior to AbbVie, Xin had worked at Pfizer and Sanofi in Inflammation, CVMED and internal medicine. Her research interest includes multiple comparisons, gatekeeping procedures, dose-finding, missing data imputations, and adaptive designs.