National Organization Notes Efforts Of UIC SHP Prof

Professor of biostatistics with the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, Donald Hedeker, has been awarded 2nd place in the best presentation contest for 2008 Joint Statistical Meetings, the largest gathering of statisticians in North America.

The award showcases contributions from the annual conference and will be presented to Hedeker at the 2009 conference in Washington D.C., Aug. 1-6. Hedeker expressed surprise and pleasure at being honored for his talk, which was titled, Joint Modeling of a Longitudinal Outcome and Early Study Discontinuation. The presentation was part of a session entitled Early Treatment Discontinuation: A Statistical Investigation and was organized by Hong Liu-Seifert of Eli Lilly and Company.

A member of the American Statistical Association since 1983, Hedeker takes pride in his work and his ability to share it with others.

“Accessibility to statistics is a guiding light for me,” he said. “I was pleased to receive the award, because giving good presentations is something that I have consciously worked on in my academic career. I feel that it is important to be able to present scientific material in as clear a way as possible. I often think about the person listening to the talk and try to think of the one or two key ideas that I would like that person to take away from the talk.”

Hedeker said this particular presentation was important because of the impact it can have for research results.

“In this particular presentation, I examined whether study dropout influenced the conclusions of a study on schizophrenia…designed to examine whether anti-psychotic medication was beneficial, relative to placebo, in treating schizophrenia,” he said.

“Subjects were measured repeatedly across time to assess their symptom levels; however a moderate number of subjects never finished the 6-week study. These dropouts could potentially influence the study conclusions,” Hedeker added. “And in my presentation, I described methods for examining this possibility.” Using what Hedeker called “relatively standard statistical software,” he said the goal of the presentation was to show how relatively sophisticated statistical modeling could be achieved. The annual awards are given as a way to congratulate the authors with the highest scores.

According to Heather Thomas, Director of Clinical Research (Biostatistics) for Watson Laboratories, Inc., presentations are scored by those attending the session. Winners are chosen based on the delivery and organization of their presentation, as well as on the statistical contribution to the field. The honor includes a monetary award.

Hedeker has served UIC in various capacities since 1991, and his previous honors include a Teaching Recognition Award from UIC.

-- Nichola Moretti