News
Recent Faculty Awarded Grants
Professor Liang Li received a U01 grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) for the Chronic Pancreatitis Clinical Research Consortium (CPCRC) Data Coordinating Center (CPCRC-DCC), for which he is PI and Associate Professor Suyu Liu is Co-PI. CPCRC was established to undertake a comprehensive clinical, epidemiological and biological characterization of patients with chronic pancreatitis, including those with acute recurrent pancreatitis.
Professor Yisheng Li is director of the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core for the Sarcoma SPORE (PI: Richard Gorlick). The goal of this grant is to reduce sarcoma morbidity and mortality through innovative translational research focused on immunologic and targeted treatments.
Assistant Professor Ziyi Li is the PI of R35 grant, focused on developing statistical methods to delineate spatial and temporal patterns of cell-cell interactions in spatial transcriptomics data.
Associate Professor Christine Peterson is director of the Biostatistics Core for the new P01 titled InHANCE: Imaging Innovation for Head and Neck Cancer Evaluation & Treatment Delivery. The goal of this grant is to leverage advanced imaging and predictive modeling to better detect, prevent and manage normal tissue injuries caused by radiotherapy.
Professor Peng Wei is Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core Director for a P01 titled Mechanisms of Bladder Cancer Development and its Therapeutic Vulnerabilities to Preventive and Interventive Therapy (PI: Bogdan Czerniak, MD Anderson Pathology; David McConkey, Johns Hopkins University).
Associate Professor Ruitao Lin is PI on an NIH/NLM R21 grant (1R21LM014699) to develop innovative design strategies to further advance platform trials that can handle multiple arms with multiple doses and multiple interim decision making.
Assistant Professor Lulu Shang is PI on the awarded institutional research grant to develop computational strategies and tools to integrate multi-dimensional spatial multi-omics data to elucidate the mechanisms of cancer progression and therapeutic response.
Professor Yisheng Li is dore director of the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core, which recently gained the CPRIT-MIRA (RP240440) grant, Novel Therapies for Osteosarcoma. The goal of this grant is to validate the proposed research across all projects and cores. This includes development of a database that integrates the results from all POSRP investigations (across projects), institutional databases, public ¡°-omics¡± and drug databases for biomarker discovery and validation.
NCI funding was renewed for the MD Anderson Brain Cancer SPORE for five more years. Ying Yuan and James Long serve as director and co-director of the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core, and Ziyi Li serves as co-investigator. The objective of the SPORE is to improve outcomes for brain cancer patients.
Dr. Mien-Chie Hung and Mrs. Kinglan Hung Professor Xuelin Huang (PI) and department chair ad interim and Conversation with a Living Legend Professor Yu Shen (co-I, among others) were awarded an NIH/NCI 1 R01 (CA272806-01A1) titled "Optimizing treatment decision by accounting for longitudinal biomarker trajectories and competing risks of each individual."
Professor Peng Wei was awarded a grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) in support of cancer research, titled "Integrative modeling of spatially resolved multi-omics data to identify bladder cancer mucosal field effects."
Professors Ying Yuan and Liang Li are co-PIs and Assistant Professor Ziyi Li is co-I on an NCI U24 grant for a Coordinating and Data Management Center (CDMC) for the Translational and Basic Science Research in Early Lesions (TBEL) Program. This program aims to integrate basic and translational cancer research studies to understand biological precancer and early cancer drivers/restraints and facilitate biology-based precision prevention approaches. This new grant expands the ongoing NIH-funded CDMC for the Consortium for the Study of Chronic Pancreatitis, Diabetes, and Pancreatic Cancer, also managed by Drs. Yuan and Li.
Assistant Professor Ziyi Li is PI on an R03 award from NIH/NCI (1R03CA270725) titled "Statistical Models for Intratumor Heterogeneity of Tumor-infiltrated Leukocytes in Lung Cancer."
Associate Professor Jing Ning and department chair ad interim and Conversation with a Living Legend Professor Yu Shen (MPI) were awarded an R01 grant from NCI (CA269696-01) titled "Statistical Methods for Integration of Multiple Data Sources toward Precision Cancer Medicine."
Assistant Professor Christine Peterson is PI for the NIH/NHLBI R01 grant titled "New Data Science Approaches to Visualize and Understand the Impact of the Microbiome on Risk of Graft-versus-host Disease."
Associate Professor Suyu Liu received an R01 grant (2R01CA160254-10) subaward via the University of Michigan titled "Serum Glyco-Markers of Early Hepatocellular Carcinoma Using a Mass Spec Approach," for which she is PI.
Professor Peter Thall and Assistant Professor Ruitao Lin (MPI) were awarded an R01 grant (1R01CA261978-01) titled "Bayesian Methods for Complex Precision Biotherapy Trials in Oncology."
Professor Liang Li received a CPRIT grant for Data Management and Analysis Core for Comparative Effectiveness Research on Cancer in Texas, for which he is Co-PI.
Assistant Professor Christine Peterson received the National Science Foundation Division of Mathematical Sciences DMS- 2113602 and DMS- 2113557 grants for Collaborative Research: Covariate-driven Approaches to Network Estimation, for which she is Co-PI.
Professor J. Jack Lee will serve as the core director for the MD Anderson Cancer Center SPORE in Melanoma, Core 3 Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. The goal is to provide comprehensive service to guide experiment design to optimize quantitative data analysis, while maintaining statistical justification and results interpretation through sound experimental design principles tailored to each project. This will include data analyses and contributions to the interpretation of results via written reports and interactions with investigators.
Meetings and Conferences
The Department at JSM 2025
Biostatistics participated in the JSM 2025 event August 2¨C7 with roles presenting research, teaching sessions and more. Our presence included 13 contributed papers, five invited paper sessions, four contributed posters, one professional development course and six topic-contributed paper sessions. Read more on the online .
JSM Invited Sessions
Suprateek Kundu, Ph.D., Bayesian Methods for Structured, Heterogeneous and High-Dimensional Neuroimaging Data; Ryan Sun, Ph.D., Testing a large number of composite null hypotheses for mediation, pleiotropy, and replication analyses in genome-wide studies; Peter Thall, Ph.D., Bayesian Personalized Treatment Selection for Advanced Breast Cancer; Ying Yuan, Ph.D., PS-SAM: doubly robust propensity-score-integrated self-adapting mixture prior to dynamically borrow information from historical data.
JSM Contributed Sessions
J Jack Lee, Ph.D., Bayesian Multi-stage Optimal Design for Phase II Studies with Particle Swarm Optimization, Metaheuristic-Algorithm-Assisted Unified Multi-Stage Optimal Trial Design; Liang Li, Ph.D., Multi-Layer Backward Joint Model for Dynamic Prediction with Multivariate Longitudinal of Mixed Type; Ruitao Lin, Ph.D., TODO: A Triple-Outcome Double-Criterion Optimal Design for Dose Monitoring-and-Optimization in Multi-Dose Randomized Trials; Ziyi Li, Ph.D., A novel statistical method to delineate spatially heterogeneous cell-cell interactions in pancreatic cancer; Jing Ning, Ph.D., Dynamic long-term prediction with intermediate event information: a flexible model with bivariate time-varying coefficients; Christine Peterson, Ph.D., Bayesian Group Shrinkage model to Identify the Key Genera in Microbiome-Metabolite Relation Dynamics; Ryan Sun, Ph.D., Large Impact of Genetic Data Processing Steps on Reproducibility in Genome-Wide Association Studies; David Swanson, Ph.D., Variance component mixture modelling for longitudinal T-cell receptor clonal dynamics; Ziyi Li, Ph.D., and Peng Wei, Ph.D., Spatial GEE for identifying differentially expressed genes in spatial transcriptomics; Peng Wei, Ph.D., Bayesian MultiState Mediation Model Elucidates the Impact of Treatment Response on Oncology Endpoint; Peng Wei, Ph.D., and Xingyu Li, Ph.D., A versatile and powerful framework to identify patient subgroups using dense random survival forests; Chong Wu, Ph.D., Sensitivity analysis with iterative outlier detection for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, Benchmarking DNA Foundation Models for Genomic Sequence Classification; Tsung-Hung Yao, Robust Bayesian Graphical Regression Models for Assessing Tumor Heterogeneity in Proteomic Networks; Chong Wu, Ph.D., and Ying Yuan, Ph.D., Bayesian Design for Optimizing Doses and Assessing Contribution of Components in Drug Combinations; Xuelin Huang, Ph.D., and Can Xie, Ph.D., Individual Dynamic Prediction for Cure and Survival Based on Longitudinal Biomarkers.
JSM Chairs / Speakers / Discussants / Courses
J Jack Lee, Ph.D., (chaired) Recent Advances in Computing, Optimization, and Causal Inference for Adaptive Clinical Trials; Ruitao Lin, Ph.D., (chaired) Advancing Precision Medicine through Bayesian Methods: Opportunities and Challenges; Christine Peterson, Ph.D., (chaired) Innovations in False Discovery Rate Control: P-values and E-values; Chong Wu, Ph.D., Mental Health Statistics Section Contributed Session 2; J Jack Lee, Ph.D., and Ying Yuan, Ph.D., Statistical and Design Considerations for Dose Optimization; Ying Yuan, Ph.D., Innovative Clinical Trial Designs for Dose Optimization: Shaping the Future of Drug Development; Peter Thall, Ph.D., Bayesian Precision Medicine (instructed course).
JSM Posters
Jing Ning, Ph.D., and Wenli Dong, Reassessing Estrogen Receptor Expression Thresholds for Prognosis Using Shape Restricted Modeling; Christine Peterson, Ph.D., Bayesian Sparse Regression for the Association of Microbiome Profiles with Metabolite Abundance, Identifying High-Risk Subgroups in Meta-Analyses with Hierarchical Bayesian Sparse Modeling.
The Department at ENAR 2024
Biostatistics faculty, analysts, postdoctoral fellows and graduate researchers organized sessions, gave presentations and/or had coauthored work presented at the ENAR 2024 Spring Meeting, March 10¨C13.
MD Anderson Biostatistics talks at the ENAR 2024 Spring Meeting included
- Model-assisted Designs: Make Adaptive Clinical Trials Easy and Accessible, Ying Yuan, Ph.D., and J. Jack Lee, Ph.D.
- Adaptive Clinical Trial Designs and Analysis from Early Stage to Confirmatory Stage, Yisheng Li, Ph.D.
- Advance Statistical and Machine Learning Approaches for High-Dimensional Data Analysis in Biomedical Research, Christine Peterson, Ph.D.
Read more in the
Recent Honors
Suprateek Kundu, Ph.D., was elected Program Chair-Elect 2026 for the ASA Statistics in Imaging Section
The American Statistical Association (ASA) Statistics in Imaging Section promotes statistics and statisticians¡¯ work in all areas of the imaging sciences.
Christine Peterson, Ph.D., received the 2024 Andrew Sabin Family Foundation Award
This highly prestigious award is granted to junior faculty showing the most promise in early years of basic/translational, clinical or population/quantitative science research. The $100,000 award is granted over two years to supplement ongoing studies or initiate new studies or for expenses related to training/career development.
Faculty Named as Fellows
Chair ad interim elected Mathematical Statistics fellow
Yu Shen, Ph.D., was granted the Institute of Mathematical Statistics¡¯ Fellowship in April 2024. This fellowship honors her novel contributions to the methodology of complex survival data analysis, adaptive clinical trial designs and cancer screening data modeling, as well as substantial collaborations impacting the practice of medicine and public health recommendations.
Two faculty elected AAAS fellows
J. Jack Lee, Ph.D., and Liang Li, Ph.D., were elected as fellows in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). A process of selection by peers in the organization since 1874, this honor recognizes invaluable contributions to science and technology.
Two biostatistics faculty are fellows of the Society for Clinical Trials
Professors Peter F. Thall (2014) and J. Jack Lee (2017) are Fellows of the Society for Clinical Trials. This fellowship honors society members who have made significant contributions to the advancement of clinical trials and to the society.
Nine biostatistics faculty are American Statistical Association fellows
Nine of the department's faculty members have attained the prestigious honor of being named a Fellow in the American Statistical Association (ASA): Donald A. Berry (1986), Kim-Anh Do (2006), Yu Shen (2007), J. Jack Lee (2008), Sanjay Shete (2012), Peter F. Thall (2015), Xuelin Huang (2017), Ying Yuan (2017), Peng Wei (2022) and Jing Ning (2023). This honor recognizes their outstanding contributions to the profession of statistics and as members of ASA.
Open Positions
Faculty Position
Multiple open rank non-tenure track research faculty positions at MD Anderson Cancer Center
Â鶹ӳ» MD Anderson Cancer Center is a comprehensive cancer center in Houston, Texas. It is the largest cancer center in the US and one of the original three comprehensive cancer centers in the country. It is both a degree-granting academic institution and a cancer treatment and research center located at the Texas Medical Center in Houston. It is ranked number 1 for cancer care in U.S. News & World Report¡¯s ¡°Best Hospitals¡± survey. Researchers at MD Anderson are empowered to conduct cross-disciplinary, collaborative science to accelerate discovery, including implementing transformative approaches that yield radical innovation. The institution invested more than $900 million in research last year, and it has made significant investments for the future.
We seek candidates to join the Department of Biostatistics at MD Anderson. Candidates with statistical expertise in the application of broad biomedical sciences are expected to conduct collaborative research in biostatistics and medical sciences, to obtain external funding, and to provide biostatistics education. Responsibilities include collaboration with clinical and basic science departments, statistical methodology research, teaching and mentoring graduate students. Applicants should demonstrate prowess in interdisciplinary, collaborative scientific research. A Ph.D. in statistics, biostatistics, or a related quantitative field is required.
Application should be emailed to: biostat-search@mdanderson.org. Please include: (a) cover letter, (b) CV, (c) Research statement (maximum 3 pages), and (d) contact information of individuals who will provide recommendation letters. There is no deadline to apply, and applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.
(Posted September 17, 2025)
Multiple open rank tenure-track/tenured faculty positions at MD Anderson Cancer Center
Â鶹ӳ» MD Anderson Cancer Center is a comprehensive cancer center in Houston, Texas. It is the largest cancer center in the US and one of the original three comprehensive cancer centers in the country. It is both a degree-granting academic institution and a cancer treatment and research center located at the Texas Medical Center. MD Anderson is ranked No. 1 for cancer care in U.S. News & World Report¡¯s ¡°Best Hospitals¡± survey. Researchers at the institution are empowered to conduct cross-disciplinary, collaborative science to accelerate discovery, including implementing transformative approaches that yield radical innovation. MD Anderson invested more than $900 million in research last year, and it has made significant investments for the future.
MD Anderson Cancer Center has for multiple tenure-track/tenured open rank (assistant/associate/full) professors to direct cutting-edge basic, translational, clinical, population, or data science research programs. We seek candidates to join the Department of Biostatistics at MD Anderson in advancing methodology research in biostatistics and data science, making discoveries to improve health, and providing an innovative biostatistics education. Responsibilities include methodological and collaborative research, teaching, and mentoring graduate students. Applicants should demonstrate independent research with a publication record, the ability/potential to obtain external funding as principal investigator, and prowess in interdisciplinary, collaborative scientific research. The department will consider candidates who develop statistical methods with application to biomedical research. A Ph.D. in statistics, biostatistics, or a related quantitative field is required.
Applications should be emailed to researchrecruitment@mdanderson.org. Please include: (a) cover letter, (b) CV, (c) research statement (maximum three pages), (d) three full-length research papers, and (e) contact information of individuals who will provide recommendation letters. There is no deadline to apply, and applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.
Contact email for questions: biostat-search@mdanderson.org
(Posted on September 17, 2025)
Join the team that is once again number one in cancer care at Â鶹ӳ» MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Biostatistics. Ranked by U.S. News and World Report¡¯s annual ¡°Best Hospitals¡± survey, the institution has held the top two positions since the start of the list. From Nobel-level collaborations to programs that dramatically accelerate the conversion of scientific discovery into clinical realities, your work will contribute to Making Cancer History?.
Exceptional candidates are sought for multiple tenured/tenure-track faculty positions at the Assistant, Associate, or full Professor level. Applicants should demonstrate prowess in interdisciplinary, collaborative scientific research. The department will consider those developing methodologies with application to biomedical research in various areas, with particular interest in early detection and cancer screening, clinical trial design, imaging, and computer-intensive methodology¡ªincluding machine learning, and integrative analyses of multiplatform high-dimensional data, such as genomic, proteomic, and microbiome analysis. A Ph.D. in statistics, biostatistics, or a related field is required.
The department has 19 faculty members, 37 master's and doctoral-level research analysts, and 10 postdoctoral fellows. Faculty members are actively involved in collaborative and methodological research in diverse areas such as clinical trial design, cancer screening and early detection, bioinformatics, genomic pathway analysis, network analysis, and integrative modeling of multiple types of complex data. This includes high-dimensional omic data, functional data analysis, Bayesian methodology, longitudinal and survival analysis, statistical genetics, population health research, and behavioral/social statistics.
Our faculty collaborate with world-class cancer scientists, such as Dr. James Allison ¡ª the 2018 Nobel Prize winner for medicine ¡ª in all cancer areas and research levels. Faculty also partner with our affiliated biostatistics doctoral programs at the University of Texas, Texas A&M University and Rice University. Our department offers strong resources, including an in-house quantitative research computing team specializing in database design, web-based clinical trial support, scientific programming, and software engineering. For specifics, visit: https://biostatistics.mdanderson.org. Direct further questions to the selection committee chair.
The institution offers competitive salaries and an outstanding personal and professional benefits package. Houston is one of the world¡¯s most innovative and diverse cities, with great neighborhoods; competitive private and public schools; a dynamic music, theater and sports scene; highly acclaimed museums; international cuisine; and year-round outdoor recreational activities.
MD Anderson is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, disability or veteran status, except where such distinction is required by law. All positions are security sensitive and subject to examination of criminal history record information. MD Anderson is a smoke-free and drug-free environment.
Consideration of applications will continue until the positions are filled. Applicants should send a cover letter outlining the relevance of their research experience and interests to the position, a curriculum vitae, a brief statement of current and proposed research, and three letters of recommendation to:
Department of Biostatistics
Â鶹ӳ» MD Anderson Cancer Center
P.O. Box 301402
Houston, TX 77230-1402
Email: biostat-search@mdanderson.org
Biostatistician Position
Successful candidates will join a team of biostatisticians working on a wide variety of collaborative projects in cancer research. Â鶹ӳ» MD Anderson Cancer Center supports and promotes professional growth and mentoring, as well as continuing education, creativity and discovery.
Responsibilities
Collaborate with clinicians and scientists to plan meaningful studies, statistically analyze and communicate/document the results:
- Assess relevant literature and existing data
- Perform simulations and complex statistical analyses using advanced statistical methods and programming
- Prepare statistical considerations for clinical trial designs or grant applications
- Perform biostatistical reviews of research protocols
- Collaborate on development of new statistical methodology
- Prepare written reports, including reports of data for committee and scientific meetings
- Collaborate with investigators on manuscripts
- Make original contributions to research projects
- Take initiative in professional activities
- If hired as or promoted to a senior position, participate in training and supervising junior statistical analysts
To be considered, send a letter of interest, curriculum vitae and three (3) letters of reference (include contact information for references) to dqs-stat-job@mdanderson.org
Minimum Qualifications
- Master's degree in biostatistics, bioinformatics, statistics, computing, or related field
- Working knowledge of Windows and/or UNIX operating systems
- Experience in statistical programming and analysis
- Excellent oral and written communication skills in English
- Experience with mainframe and/or PC databases, document processing and statistical software such as SAS and S-Plus
Desired Qualifications
- Experience writing reports and analytical sections of grant applications
- Extensive experience in statistical consulting, data analysis, design and management of clinical trials in the biomedical or cancer research setting
Salary: Competitive; commensurate with experience
EEO & Employment Eligibility
It is the policy of Â鶹ӳ» MD Anderson Cancer Center to provide equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, age, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, disability, veteran status, genetic information or any other basis protected by MD Anderson policy or by federal, state or local laws, unless such distinction is required by law. All positions at MD Anderson Cancer Center are security sensitive and subject to examination of criminal history record information. MD Anderson Cancer Center provides a smoke-free and drug-free environment.
Postdoctoral Fellow Position
Postdoctoral fellow positions are currently available with the Department of Biostatistics. .