BERD Affiliated Faculty
We are fortunate to engage faculty who are leading experts in statistical design and research methods across a number of domains. Please find more information about our faculty below (listed alphabetically by last name).
Chul Ahn, Ph.D.
Dr. Ahn has been a biostatistics leader for research projects and clinical trials, with over 520 peerreviewed publications. He is the Director of Biostatistics Shared Resources at the Cancer Center. Previously, he served as the Director of Biostatistics for the BERD Core. He has extensive experience in the design and analysis of pre-clinical, clinical, epidemiologic, and population studies. Additionally, he has authored numerous methodological papers on the design and analysis of correlated data. These include books such as 'Sample Size Calculations on Clustered and Longitudinal Outcome in Clinical Research' and 'Design and Analysis of Pragmatic Trials.
Expertise: Design and Analysis of Clinical Trials, Causal Inference, and Observational Analysis
Arthur S. Hong, M.D., M.P.H.
Arthur S. Hong, M.D., M.P.H., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and the O’Donnell School of Public Health at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. His medical degree is from the University of Michigan, with residency in internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic. He completed a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School, including a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Hong’s research interests include understanding how patients and clinicians interact within the health care system.
Expertise: Health Services Researcher (insurance claims & health records; interrupted time series), Care Delivery, and Quality of Care
George Jackson, Ph.D.
George L. Jackson, Ph.D., MHA is a healthcare epidemiologist and implementation scientist with a background in health administration. He joined the faculty of the UT Southwestern Medical Center in February of 2023 as a Professor and Director of the Advancing Implementation & Improvement Science Program in the Peter O'Donnell Jr. School of Public Health. The goal is to develop a system to identify potentially successful projects using implementation and improvement science – which uses rigorous, data-driven research to expand programs and improve a community’s health.
Expertise: Implementation Science and Improvement Science
Heather Kitzman, Ph.D.
Dr. Heather Kitzman is an Associate Professor in the Peter J. O’Donnell Jr. School of Public Health and Director of the Office of Community Health and Research Engagement. Her expertise is in randomized and pragmatic studies at the community or clinic level to improve health outcomes in those experiencing poverty, and ethnic minority persons. She has expertise in patient reported outcomes, electronic health record data, community-based study implementation, and qualitative, quantitative, and biospecimen measurements.
Expertise: Patient and Community-Engaged Translational and Clinical Research and Recruitment in Lower Income and Underrepresented in Biomedical Research Populations
MinJae Lee, Ph.D.
Dr. MinJae Lee is an Associate Professor of Biostatistics at Peter O’Donnell Jr. School of Public Health. She also serves as Chair of Population Science Protocol Review and Monitoring Committee (PRMC) at Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Lee's research focus centers around developing and applying innovative statistical methods to solve challenges and issues found in various research areas.
Expertise: Statistical Analysis and Design for Disease Prevention/Behavioral Intervention Trials, Multilevel Data/Longitudinal Data Analysis, Biomarker Data Analysis, and Lifestyle Behavioral Data Analysis
Joshua Liao, M.D.
Dr. Liao is a Professor of Medicine and Public Health at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He has extensive experience and expertise in health policy and population health interventions, with emphasis on quantitative program evaluation and implementation of behaviorally designed cared delivery interventions.
Expertise: Health Policy, Health Care Payment, Population Health, Value-based Care, and Behavioral Economics
Yang Xie, Ph.D.
Dr. Yang Xie holds the Raymond D. and Patsy R. Nasher Distinguished Chair in Cancer Research and serves as a Professor and Associate Dean of Data Science at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She is the founding director of the Quantitative Biomedical Research Center, the Data Science for Precision Health Initiative, and the Pediatric Cancer Data Core at UT Southwestern. She has served as a regular member of the NIH Biodata Management and Analysis Study Section and is an advisor to the journal Lancet Digital Health. With training in statistics, medicine, and epidemiology, she possesses a comprehensive understanding of developing and validating quantitative methods for precision health applications.
Expertise: Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Predictive Modeling, and Biomarker Discovery
Donghan "Mo" Yang, Ph.D.
Dr. Yang’s research focuses on developing methods, platforms, and infrastructure for the integration and analysis of multimodal healthcare and biomedical data to address clinically important questions. He has extensive experience in working with electronic health records, claims, medical notes, and imaging and molecular profiling data. Outcomes from his research include new clinical insights from these real-world data, assessments of health and healthcare disparities, and data commons platforms for various disease domains. As the Director of Biostatistics and Data Science Core, he leads a team to provide informatics, analytics, and technological support to UTSW investigators and beyond.
Expertise: Data Science, Health Informatics, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing
Song Zhang, Ph.D.
Dr. Song Zhang is a professor of biostatistics in the Peter O’Donnell Jr. School of Public Health, UT Southwestern Medical Center. He is the director of BERD (Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design) for the CTSA program. He also serves as an expert of experimental design on the NCI Central Institutional Review Board (Adult CIRB – Early Phase Emphasis). His research interest includes Bayesian hierarchical modeling and clinical trial design. He has co-authored two books titled "Sample Size Calculations for Clustered and Longitudinal Outcomes in Clinical Research" and "Design and Analysis of Pragmatic Trials", both published by Chapman & Hall/CRC. As the principal investigator, Dr. Zhang has received fundings from PCORI, NIH, and NSF to support his research.
Expertise: Design and Analysis of Clinical Trials, Observational Studies, Large National Database Analysis, and Bayesian Hierarchical Models