2023 TSHS Section Awards

Section Awards, by Maria Ciarleglio, PhD, Yale School of Public Health.

This year, TSHS will present three awards to our Section members—the Young Investigator Award, the Outstanding Teaching Award, and the Distinguished Achievement Award.

Dr. Lucy D’Agostino McGowan, Assistant Professor of Statistics at Wake Forest University, is the 2023 recipient of the Young Investigator Award. This award recognizes a young investigator for their promise as a statistics educator or in conducting statistics education research in the health sciences, and Lucy excels in both areas. Lucy’s teaching style is active and engaging and her students frequently comment on her passion in the classroom and her dedication to the “whole student.” In addition to being a strong statistical educator, Lucy is also a promising statistics education researcher. In her 2022 paper, “Design Principles for Data Analysis,” published in the Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, Lucy introduces a set of six data analytic design principles. These principles are useful in the classroom, where it is valuable to have a way to describe what makes data analyses differ from each other and why one type of analysis might be preferable to another. These design principles provide a structured way of categorizing and characterizing different approaches to data analysis. Key to this paper are data that Lucy collected in her classroom, where she observed how students applied these principles to assignments. Outside of the university setting, Lucy is frequently invited to teach statistical concepts to the broader community. She has also created and contributed to several online courses and co-hosts the popular podcast Casual Inference to help the general public understand causal inference topics.

Dr. Hadiza Galadima, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at Old Dominion University, is the 2023 recipient of the Outstanding Teaching Award. This award recognizes an outstanding statistics educator and mentor in the health sciences. Throughout her 8-year career as an educator of biostatistics in the health sciences, Hadiza has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to teaching, mentoring, and training students. Hadiza has an extensive teaching portfolio that spans introductory, advanced, and seminar-style courses. She has also developed and led several short courses and specialized workshops in data management and statistical analysis for students and faculty in the health sciences. Her teaching style, clarity, and commitment to creating an inclusive learning environment have been praised by students, peers, and faculty. In addition to being an exceptional educator, Hadiza also has a strong track record of student mentoring. Her dedication to her students is unparalleled, and her ability to make complex statistical concepts accessible and relevant to their research has been cited as a critical factor in their success.

Dr. Jose-Miguel Yamal, Professor of Biostatistics and Director of the Coordinating Center for Clinical Trials at the University of Texas School of Public Health, is the 2023 recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award. This award recognizes a Section member who has provided outstanding long-term service to the Section. Jose-Miguel has served TSHS since 2013 in numerous roles, including Program Chair, Section Chair, and Council of Sections Representative. Jose-Miguel has provided leadership to our Section and selflessly served in any position that needed to be filled. He is a dedicated statistician and educator deserving of recognition for his service to the Section and the ASA.

Awards will be presented at the TSHS Mixer on Monday evening, August 7, at JSM 2023 in Toronto. We hope to see all of our members there!