TSHS 2025 Outgoing Chair Message
- Jaya M. Satagopan, Rutgers School of Public Health
- 3 hours ago
- 6 min read
Outgoing Chair, by Jaya M. Satagopan, PhD, Rutgers University.
It has been my honor to serve as your 2025 TSHS Section Chair. As I end my tenure as Chair, I would like to welcome our 2026 Section Chair, Amanda Ellis, PhD, and highlight some of our TSHS Section activities over this past year.
Executive Committee
This year, we welcomed Amanda Ellis as our 2025 Chair-Elect, who will transition to the active Chair in 2026. We also welcomed Mingzhao Hu as 2025 active Program Chair, Alex Kaizer as 2025 Program Chair-Elect, who will transition to the active Program Chair in 2026, and Sujata Patil as our Webinar coordinator. We are delighted have John Doucette, our Treasurer, and Angelo Elmi, our Secretary, will continue in these roles (2025 – 2027). Finally, I would like to thank Darsy Darssan for his outstanding leadership and exceptional service as our section’s Webinar Coordinator till 2025.
JSM 2025
The 2025 JSM was held on August 2nd – 7th in Nashville, Tennessee. The Teaching Statistics in the Health Sciences (TSHS) Section of the ASA sponsored a variety of exciting events. Events included:
Two Invited Panel Sessions:
“Navigating Challenges and Leveraging Opportunities in Biostatistics Graduate Education”
“Innovations in Incorporating Collaborative Skills throughout the Statistical Training Pathway”
One Topic Contributed Paper Session:
“Addressing Faculty Salary Inequities in Higher Education”
Two Contributed Paper Sessions:
“Applications, Innovations, and Education in Modern Statistics”
“An Analysis of Students’ Learning Outcomes and Experiences in Graduate Biostatistical Methods”
Three roundtable lunch sessions:
Lunch with Jayawant Mandrekar on “Strategies for Integrating Statistics into Health Sciences Education at an Academic Medical Center”
Lunch with Matt Hayat on “Using JASP to Teach Bayesian Statistics to Health Science Students”
Lunch with Milo Schield on “Teaching Causal Inference Using Observational Data”
The TSHS Mixer and Business meeting was held on August 4th and began with approximately 40 attendees enjoying a variety of hors d’oeuvres and refreshments sponsored by STATA. After attendees had a chance to mingle, I (Jaya Satagopan, Chair of TSHS) gave a warm welcome and invited all present to participate in the door prize drawings which included which included the following donations:
Stress balls (8) from NCSS Statistical Software
Pen with stylus (5) and lanyards (5) from the Institute of Mathematical Statistics
Notebook (2) and socks with statistics motifs (2) from PHASE
Books (2) from Springer:
Dose findings and beyond in pharmaceutical development Edited by J Ye, D-G Chen, W Zhou, Q Deng, JC Cappelleri
Modeling binary correlated responses using SAS, SPSS, R, and STATA by JR Wilson, KA Lorenz, and LP Selby
Book (1) from Cambridge University Press
Regression for health and social science – Applied linear models with R by D Zelterman
Vouchers (3) for free books from CRC Press – Taylor & Francis Group
At JSM 2025, TSHS shared an information booth with two peer sections – Isolated Statisticians and Section on Statistics and Data Science Education – in the expo room, where we collaboratively disseminated information about our section’s mission, vision, and activities. Thank you to all of the organizers, chairs, speakers, panelists, and presenters, and thank you to all those who volunteered at the TSHS information booth. A special thank you to the Program Chair, Mingzhao Hu, and Program Chair-Elect, Alex Kaizer, for their hard work developing and organizing the 2025 JSM program!!
Awards
During the 2025 JSM mixer, we showcased the recipients of the TSHS section awards to the following individuals:
Outstanding Teaching Award given to Jianghu (James) Dong, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics, University of Nebraska Medical Center.
Young Investigator Award given to Sarah Samarodnitsky, PhD, Assistant Attending Biostatistician in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Distinguished Achievement Award given to Ann Brearley, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics & Health Data Science, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota.
The winner of the 2025 Best Contributed JSM Paper Award is Lynnette W. Smith, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics, University of Nebraska Medical Center, who presented “Replication, Replication – Creation of a Biostatistics Capstone Course.” Dr. Smith will be presented with the award during the TSHS Mixer at JSM 2026.
Alex Kaizer, PhD, assistant professor, University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus who presented “Teaching Reproducibility, Scientific Writing, and Dissemination by Publishing a Classroom Journals for Student Projects” at JSM 2024 was recognized with the 2024 Best Contributed JSM Paper Award, which was announced at JSM 2024.
We also recognized and celebrated TSHS member Cynthia Long, PhD, who was elected as a 2025 ASA Fellow “For her pioneering work in bringing statistical methods to the chiropractic profession, for her outstanding and innovative statistics and research education for the health sciences; and for service and exceptional leadership to ASA”.
The mixer was a wonderful event and well attended. We greatly appreciate everyone’s contributions and attendance.
Webinars
All of the TSHS Webinars can be viewed on our YouTube site at https://www.youtube.com/@tshs4234
For our Spring 2025 webinar panel on the topic “Using AI for teaching statistics in health sciences”, we had a great presentation from multiple panelists. I (Jaya Satagopan, Chair, TSHS) moderated the discussion with three panelists: Christine Arcari, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana; Jay Klopper, Teaching Associate Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Millken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington DC; and, Justin Post, Teaching Professor, Department of Statistics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina. They discussed several ways through which AI is transforming the way we teach statistics in health sciences, pedagogical benefits and challenges, practical applications of AI for enhancing student engagement and learning as well as navigating ethical concerns, views for the future including AI policy for the classroom and faculty training to integrate AI into teaching, and current challenges and limitations surrounding regarding concerns about students relying too much on AI without developing critical thinking skills, AI hallucinations, and privacy issues.
ABSTRACT: In this dynamic panel webinar, explore how artificial intelligence (AI) could revolutionize the way statistics is taught in health sciences. From automating data simulations and creating adaptive learning environments to leveraging generative AI tools for personalized education, this session discusses methods to enhance both teaching efficiency and student engagement. Discussion topics will include: utilizing AI to design interactive statistical visualizations, automating repetitive tasks like data cleaning in student projects, implementing generative AI to support self-paced learning, and addressing ethical considerations and biases in AI-driven education tools. This webinar is ideal for educators, researchers, and professionals in health sciences who are curious about integrating AI to enrich their teaching practices.
Webinars for 2026 are being planned under the leadership of Dr. Sujata Patil, Cleveland Clinic. Please be on the lookout for announcements.
Additional Teaching Resources
Resources Portal: The TSHS Resources Portal provides high-quality open-access, peer-reviewed real-world datasets to our members. Each dataset is available in several formats, and includes an introduction, a data dictionary, and the citation for the original study publication. A new resource was added during 2025:
The liver steatosis dataset which contains information on 443 of 451 patients who had bariatric surgery at the Cleveland Clinic between 2005 and 2009 and underwent livery biopsy. These data are from Wu et al (2012, Obesity Surgery, 22(2): 240-247, DOI: 10.1007/s11695-011-0509-8), who conducted a retrospective cohort study to estimate the prevalence of liver steatosis (fatty liver disease) and fibrosis in these patients and to determine the suitability of ultrasound for diagnosing liver steatosis. See http://www.causeweb.org/tshs/liver-steatosis/.
Blog: The TSHS Blog is where we post current announcements, section news, webinar recaps, and member spotlights. In addition, the resource reviews provide critical evaluations of both new and updated books and other resources. If you have ideas about teaching that you would like to share, consider writing a blog post and contact the Blog Editor, Charlotte Bolch, or Resource Review co-Editors, Jim Dignam and Mingzhao Hu.
Community Forum: The TSHS Community Forum is available to members on the ASA’s website and is a great way to share ideas, ask questions, and find collaborators.
Getting Involved: There are many opportunities to be a part of our vital and growing Section. If you would like to get more involved, please let us know and to stay in touch and up to date with TSHS be sure to visit our:
Website: https://community.amstat.org/tshs/
Resources Portal: https://www.causeweb.org/tshs/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@tshs4234
Finally, I would like to thank the members of our Executive Committee for all of their hard work and dedication to the Section. And thank you to our Section members for your membership and involvement. I look forward to continuing my service and support to this Section in the coming years.
Best wishes,
Jaya M. Satagopan
2025 TSHS Chair
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