Thesis Project

All students complete a thesis in the form of a collaborative research project. The goal of the thesis project is to provide students with a collaborative experience in applied biostatistics in the form of real-world data analysis and methods development that will help align with future careers.

The thesis is a collaborative project involving both biostatistics and medical research faculty, and it will take the form of a study based on human population or statistical methods and simulation. The final product consists of a publishable manuscript (2,500-3,500 words in length) and a poster presentation (with awards for highest-ranking poster). Faculty organize a "project pitch" session in late summer quarter that will help students identify projects and pair up with advisers.

Forms

The following forms need to be completed for the thesis project.

• Topic Declaration
• Proposal
• Advisory Committee

Selected Previous Projects

• The Relationship between the Number and Type of Prescription Medications and Physical Activity Amongst Patients With or At High Risk for Knee Osteoarthritis
• Social determinants of social treatment delays in cervical cancer patients
• Trends in Renal Impairment and Long-Term Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes Following Liver Transplantation
• DNA Methylation-based Signatures Associated with Progression-Free Survival in Meningioma Patients
• Evaluating performance of covariate-constrained randomization (CCR) techniques under misspecification of cluster-level variables
• Overall Survival Analysis of Patients with Glioblastoma Treated with Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Anti-Depressants: A Retrospective Study with Time-Dependent Variable Modeling

Student Thesis Achievements

• Presentations at international professional society meetings
  • Society for Clinical Trials
  • UserR! Conference
  • American Statistical Association (ASA) National Meeting(s)
• Development of Rshiny application
• Example publications:
  • Metabomxtr: an R package for mixture-model analysis of non-targeted metabolomics data
  • A retrospective survival analysis of Glioblastoma patients treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors
  • Evaluating performance of covariate-constrained randomization (CCR) techniques under misspecification of cluster-level variables in cluster-randomized trials
  • Abnormal Microarray, Clinical Outcomes, and Surgical Risk Scores in Young Children with Cardiac Disease