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Biostatistics Doctoral Student Profiles

Learn more about the focus of our students' research in Drexel Dornsife's PhD in Biostatistics program.

Table of Contents:

Emama Amin, MS

Emama Amin headshot

Pronouns: she/her

Degrees: MS in Applied Statistics from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh; BS in Applied Statistics from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh

Focus: Emama’s research is driven by a strong commitment to improving public health and reducing health disparities. She aims to apply advanced statistical methods to address pressing health challenges.

Research Interests:

  • Longitudinal Analysis
  • Bayesian Statistics
  • Spatial Statistics
  • Causal Inference

Professional Experience: Before joining Drexel as a PhD student, Emama was working as a research associate in Institution of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), Bangladesh. Her work focused on Modelling the transmission Dynamics and identifying the associated behavarial and environmental risk factors with Avian Influenza virus (AIV) and Nipah Virus (NiV) in Bangladesh. Prior to her role at IEDCR, Emama served as an external teaching fellow at the James P. Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University.

Publications: View publications on Google Scholar

Contact: ea683@drexel.edu

Giancarlo (Gianni) Anfuso, MS

Giancarlo (Gianni) Anfuso headshot

Pronouns: he/him/his

Degrees: MS in Biostatistics from Drexel University; BS in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania

Focus: Giancarlo’s current research focuses on developing methods to prevent oversmoothing in Bayesian spatial models examining life expectancy and disparities in life expectancy across census tracts in Philadelphia. For Giancarlo’s doctoral research fellowship at the Urban Health Collaborative, he is currently providing support for research that conducts similar analyses across 6 cities in Chile. He is also working on a project that simulates how policy effect estimates change in the presence of different types of information bias.

Research Interests:

  • Spatial Statistics
  • Bayesian Methods
  • Life Expectancy
  • Urban Health
  • Health Disparities

Contact: ga437@drexel.edu

Ruby Bayliss

Degrees: BS in Mathematics from St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Research Interests:

  • Environmental Health
  • Urban Health
  • Health Disparities

Professional Experience: Before starting the doctoral program in Biostatistics at Drexel, Ruby worked as a research assistant for Dr. Meghan Mason, where she analyzed the relationship between behaviors and exposures associated to pathogen carriage at a large community gathering.

Contact: rlb96@drexel.edu or personal website

Jenna Cody Carcione, MS

Jenna Cody Carcione headshot

Degrees: MS in Biostatistics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; BA in Neuroscience with a minor in Statistics at Swarthmore College

Research Interests:

  • Adaptive designs for clinical trials
  • Multiplicity in group sequential designs
  • Predictive/prognostic biomarkers & personalized medicine

Professional Experience: Jenna works as a Principal Statistician at the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. Prior to her current role, Jenna worked as a Senior Statistician at Johnson & Johnson, Biostatistician at IQVIA, Statistical Programmer at IQVIA, and various academic research positions.

Contact: jac679@drexel.edu

Hal Chen, MS

Hal Chen headshot

Degrees: MS in Biostatistics from Drexel University; BS in Biological Sciences from Carnegie Mellon University

Focus:

  • Dissertation research: Application and extension of machine learning methods (specifically the fused Lasso) to urban and environmental health data.
  • Doctoral research fellow: Investigating effects of the urban/built environment and climate change on health inequities and outcomes in cities as part of the SALURBAL project.

Research Interests:

  • Machine learning applications in public health
  • Urban and environmental health
  • Statistical consulting

Publications: View list of publications

Professional Experience: Previously, as research assistant at the Urban Health Collaborative, Hal has contributed to statistical analysis for multiple research projects ranging from an investigation into the effectiveness of sobriety checkpoints on road safety to a study on gender inequality and women’s achievements in Latin America. He has also assisted with updating and managing large city- and country-level datasets for various projects.

Contact: hc828@drexel.edu

Jintong Hou, MS

Degrees: MS in Biostatistics from Drexel University; Master of Clinical Medicine from Capital Medical University, China; BS in Clinical Medicine from Capital Medical University, China

Focus: My master’s final project was to examine the relationship between total oxytocin dose and the risk of primary cesarean section among low-risk women using lasso, generalized additive model and random forest.

Yijun Guo, MS

Yijun Guo headshot

Preferred pronouns: she/her

Degrees: MS in Biostatistics, University of Michigan; BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences (Pharmacy), Sun Yat-sen University, China

Focus: My current doctoral fellow work focuses on child obesity.

Research Interests:

  • Biostatistics/Bioinformatics research (MS): Cost-effectiveness evaluation, Adverse childhood experience (ACE), Spatial transcriptomics
  • Pharmaceutical sciences research (BS): Drug candidate testing on cell and animal models
  • For future doctoral research, also interested in topics of health disparities and spatial statistics

Contact: yg454@drexel.edu

Daphne (Gaoqianxue) Liu, MS

Daphne Liu headshot

Preferred pronouns: she/her/hers

Degrees: MS in Biostatistics from Yale University; BS in Mathematics in Shandong University

Focus: Daphne is working with Dr. Loni Tabb on research about the effects of cannabis legalization on racial inequalities in NJ's criminal legal system.

Research Interests:

  • Machine Learning in Public Health
  • Urban Health
  • Substance Use

Professional Experience: Postgraduate associate in the ACCESS lab at Yale University, where I worked on multiple projects using machine learning methods to predict and risk assess adolescent substance use.

Contact: ql93@drexel.edu

Md Karimuzzaman, MS

Md Karimuzzaman headshot

Degrees: MS in Statistics, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh; BSc in Statistics, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh

Research Interests:

  • GEE
  • Regularization Methods
  • Count Data Models
  • Spatial Epidemiology
  • Food Environment
  • Maternal and Child Health

Professional Experience: Md Karimuzzaman has led and contributed to multiple research projects across various academic institutions. Prior to joining Drexel, he served as a Research Associate at BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health (JPGSP).

Publications: View list of publications

Contact: Mk3925@gmail.com or personal website

Jihyeon (Ji) Kwon, MS

Degrees: MS in Statistics from Wake Forest University; BA in Statistics from Korea University

Research Interests:

  • Bayesian Statistics
  • Spatiotemporal Statistics
  • Disease Mapping
  • Applications in public health, infectious diseases, and social sciences

Professional Experience: Jihyeon worked in the IT industry at NAVER, South Korea, where she analyzed Human Resource data after obtaining her BA in Statistics. Before joining Drexel, she also worked at Los Alamos National Lab as a post masters student where she developed a spatiotemporal model for Histoplasmosis.

Contact: jk3868@drexel.edu

John Pluta, MS

John Pluta headshot

Degrees: MS in Biostatistics from University of Pennsylvania; BS in Psychology from Drexel University

Focus: John’s doctoral work will focus on developing new methods for the analysis of genetic data.

Research Interests:

  • Statistical Genetics
  • Neuroimaging
  • Variable Selection

Professional Experience: For many years, John has worked as a research scientist focusing on data-intensive biological systems, namely human imaging and genetics.

Ayako Shimada, MS, MA

Preferred pronouns: she/her

Degrees: MS in Statistics from the University of Rhode Island; MA in Economics from Hitotsubashi University, Japan

Research Interests:

  • Causal Inference
  • Network Data Analysis
  • Imaging Data Analysis
  • Clinical Trials

Professional Experience: Ayako works as a Statistician in the Division of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics at Thomas Jefferson University

Publications: View publications on Google Scholar

Contact: as5985@drexel.edu

Learn more about research and learning opportunities available with Drexel Dornsife’s Master of Science (MS) in Biostatistics and PhD in Biostatistics.