Turning Data Into Discovery: Advancing Health Through Biostatistics
This half-day conference brings together students and faculty in the health sciences to showcase research powered by robust research design and rigorous statistical methods. Through engaging presentations, the event highlights how biostatistics drives impactful health research and fosters cross-disciplinary collaboration.
The conference will be followed by a focused session on quantitative research design, giving attendees an opportunity to explore methodological strategies and enhance their approach to statistical analysis in health research.
Schedule:
9:00 AM - 9:05 AM Welcome
9:05 AM - 9:45 AM Keynote with Dr. Douglas Simpson
9:45 AM - 9:50 AM Break
9:50 AM - 10:50 AM Panel I speakers: Dr. Annette McCoy, Dr. Margarita Teran Garcia, Dr. Josie Rudolphi
10:50 AM - 10:55 AM Break
10:55 AM - 11:55 AM Panel II speakers: Qihao Zhan, Aditya Vaidyam, Maxwell Wallace
11:55 AM - Closing remarks
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Break (lunch on your own)
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM Quantitative Research Design with Dr. Jesus Sarol, Jr.
Speaker information:
Keynote
- Douglas Simpson and his collaborators use quantitative ultrasound (QUS) to study cervical changes linked to preterm birth. This work shows that QUS can detect risk earlier than standard measures, track how the cervix heals after birth, and be automated for easier use in clinics, bringing QUS closer to becoming a practical tool to help prevent preterm birth.
Panel I
- Annette McCoy: Clinical research offers both opportunities and challenges for the clinician-scientist. This talk will focus on how study design and managing expectations can overcome factors such as biological variability and small sample size to achieve clinically meaningful outcomes.
- Margarita Teran Garcia: Obesity is a major concern for Hispanic children, shaped by social and structural barriers to healthy living. A USDA-funded trial, Abriendo Caminos, tested a family-based program across multiple U.S. sites. The program helped prevent short-term weight gain, especially among younger children and girls, but benefits faded after 6 months. Culturally tailored programs can spark short-term changes, though more support is needed to sustain long-term healthy habits.
- Josie Rudolphi: I will focus on using quantitative methods to describe the mental health status, stress, and safety perceptions of various agricultural populations, how advanced quantitative statistics and interdisciplinary collaborations lead to novel research with agricultural producers and workers, and how our research is informing impactful Extension programs.
Panel II
- Qihao Zhan: Qihao is a fourth-year PhD student in the School of Social Work, studying healthy relationships among adolescents. Her presentation examines adolescent dating experiences using data from the Illinois Youth Survey, focusing on the protective role of school climate in dating violence victimization and its implications for prevention practice.
- Aditya Vaidyam: Aditya Vaidyam, a medical student and digital psychiatry researcher, co-created the LAMP Platform, an open-source tool that connects patient data from phones and wearables with clinical care. With its AI toolkit Cortex, LAMP enables surveys, mindfulness tools, and personalized interventions, improving access and outcomes—especially for people with serious mental illness.
- Maxwell Wallace: Max is a visiting research project coordinator working with The Illinois Youth Tobacco Survey (ILYTS), a statewide public health survey designed to track youth tobacco use, exposure, and attitudes among middle and high school students. To be a truly representative survey of Illinois youth, careful methodological practices in sampling, data collection, analysis, and dissemination must be employed to understand this health risk accurately. To assist our team with these complex methods, we partnered with the BERD team to reignite the project after nearly a decade, made possible with funding from the Illinois Department of Public Health.
