A Biostatistician’s Journey in the High Dimensional World of Science

Events

A Biostatistician’s Journey in the High Dimensional World of Science

Dana Tudorascu, PhD Associate Professor of Psychiatry & Biostatistics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Join us on November 18th when we will feature the research of Dana Tudorascu, PhD, as part of our Meet the PI lecture series. 

Dr. Tudorascu earned her PhD in biostatistics from the University of Pittsburgh. During graduate school, she gained invaluable experience in statistical methods, fMRI and other imaging techniques, as well as in neuroimaging data analysis from Positron Emission Tomography (PET) studies in people with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease. Prior to joining the Pitt Psychiatry faculty in 2017, Dr. Tudorascu was an assistant professor in the Pitt Department of Medicine. She is currently an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Biostatistics and serves as the Co-Leader of the Study Design and Analysis Group in Psychiatry (StatPsy). Dr. Tudorascu’s research focuses on improving brain tissue classification in presence of white matter lesions and atrophy in neuroimaging studies of people with age-related pathology or Alzheimer’s disease. She is currently principal investigator of a National Institute on Aging-funded R01 grant focused on statistical methods to improve reproducibility and reduce technical variability in multimodal imaging studies of Alzheimer’s disease. In addition to her own research, Dr. Tudorascu’s activities in the Department of Psychiatry include training others in statistical methods used in multimodal imaging studies of neuropsychiatric disorders. 

In her talk, Dr. Tudorascu will present challenges and solutions in the analysis of high dimensional biomarkers data from studies of Alzheimer’s disease due to various sources of technical variability. She also will introduce some new statistical and machine learning developments that address scanner differences for MRI and PET studies as well as new statistical developments for white matter hyperintensity detection accuracy.

Lectures will be offered as a hybrid event. Join us in the UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital Auditorium (masking is required) or click on this Zoom link and enter the following information to participate remotely:

Meeting ID:  967 3169 9440
Passcode:    835501

For More Information. Please contact Frances Patrick at patrickfm@upmc.edu


CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS. The entirety of this program will be a lecture by the speaker(s). All individuals able to control the content of this educational activity are required to disclose all relevant financial relationships with any proprietary entity producing, marketing, re-selling, or distributing health care goods or services, used on, or consumed by, patients. Registration is not required for this event. This event is free and there will be no refunds. The University of Pittsburgh is an affirmative action, equal opportunity institution. The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine designates this educational activity for a maximum of 1.5 AMA PRA Category 1 CreditsTM. Each physician should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. Other health care professionals are awarded .15 continuing education units (CEUs), which are equal to 1.5 contact hours. In accordance with Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education requirements on disclosure, information about relationships of presenters with commercial interests (if any) will be included in materials which will be distributed at the time of the conference. WPH is approved by the American Psychological Association to offer continuing education for psychologists. WPH maintains responsibility for this program and its contents. This program is being offered for 1.5 continuing education credits. The indicated number of clock hours of continuing education is provided through UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital’s Office of Educational Resources and Planning, a PA-approved provider of social work continuing education in accordance with all the applicable educational and professional standards of the Pennsylvania State Board of Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapist. These clock hours satisfy requirements for LSW/LCSW, LPC and LMFT renewal. For more information, call (412) 204-9085.