I am a Professor and Director of Health Statistics and Data Science at the Duke University School of Nursing. I also have a secondary appointment with the Department of Population Health Sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine. I received my PhD in Measurement and Quantitative Methods from Michigan State University and my MS in Statistics from Fuzhou University, China.
My research interests are causal inference, advanced statistical modeling, data analytics, meta-analysis, and psychometrics; and their applications in the social, behavioral, and health sciences. I have been involved as a Principal Investigator, Co-Investigator, and Principal Biostatistician in many research projects funded by federal agencies, such as NIH, NSF, and the like. I have published numerous refereed journal articles on both methodological and applied research.
I was awarded the Outstanding PhD Faculty Award by the Duke University School of Nursing. I was an Invited Expert Observer in the Reference Group on Health Statistics of the World Health Organization. I was Chair of the Applied Public Health Statistics Section of the American Public Health Association. I am a Science Board Member of the American Public Health Association.