Event Page: COPSS-NISS Leadership Webinar: Leadership in Professional Societies | National Institute of Statistical Sciences 

Date: Tuesday, December 16, 2025 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm ET

Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_tL4IYFmERI22ikVizG-8NA

COPSS-NISS Leadership Webinar: Leadership in Professional Societies

Overview

Join us for an engaging COPSS-NISS Leadership Webinar on "Leadership in Professional Societies," where distinguished leaders share insights on fostering collaboration and driving impact within the statistical community. Gain inspiration and practical advice on how to take on leadership roles and contribute meaningfully to your professional society.

Download Event Flyer: 2025 12 16 COPSS-NISS Leadership Webinar Flyer.pdf (1.35 MB)

Speakers

Dr. Paul Albert, Senior Investigator and Director, Biostatistics Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology & Genetics, NIH National Cancer Institute

Dr. Tanya P. Garcia, PhD, Associate Professor of Biostatistics, Gillings School of Public Health, UNC Neurology Huntington Disease Program

Moderators / Discussants

Lucy D'Agostino McGowan, Assistant Professor, Department of Statistical Sciences, Wake Forest University

Dr. Ana Ortega-Villa, PhD, Associate Director of Biostatistics at Biogen and an Adjunct Professor for the Department of Statistics at Virginia Tech

About the Speakers

Dr. Paul Albert was appointed senior investigator and Director of the Biostatistics Branch at NIH within the National Cancer Institute in 2016. Prior to joining the Division, he was a senior investigator and head of the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Branch in the Division of Epidemiology, Statistics, and Prevention at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Dr. Albert came to the NIH in 1998, first as a staff fellow in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in the Biometry and Field Studies Branch, later as a mathematical statistician in the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, and the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis. He received his Ph.D. in biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. In 2022, Dr. Albert was appointed as one of the editors of Statistics in Medicine. In 2023, he was elected president of the Eastern North American Region of the International Biometrics Society. Dr. Albert's research interests primarily focus on complex modeling of correlated outcomes in biomedical sciences, including the analysis of longitudinal data, diagnostic testing, and data from biomarker studies. In addition, some of Dr. Albert's more recent research includes the joint modeling of longitudinal and survival data, the analysis of high-dimensional chemical mixture models, and the analysis of circadian rhythms. See Profile

Dr. Tanya P. Garcia, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Biostatistics in the Gillings School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina Neurology Huntington Disease Program. Excited about innovating practical and theoretically sound methods that address challenges in biomedical fields, Dr. Garcia has built a strong interdisciplinary research agenda. It involves national and international collaborations with neuroscientists and biologists, high-impact learning opportunities for students, and service work that promotes a future of diverse (bio)statisticians. Her research focuses on extracting maximal information from large, highly correlated data structures and has led to scientific discoveries in neurodegenerative diseases and the gut microbiome. Her teaching integrates these research activities with interactive, learner-centered projects that promote critical thinking. Her leadership in service activities involves promoting the success of underrepresented groups in (bio)statistics and providing her professional expertise regionally and internationally. Dr. Garcia's research has attracted over $900,000 in competitive funding as Principal Investigator including grants from the NIH National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and Huntington's Disease Society of America. She publishes at a rate of 3 papers per year in top statistics journals including Journal of the American Statistical Association, Annals of Applied Statistics, and Bioinformatics. Her work is cited (inter)nationally by scholars in United States, France, Australia, Hong Kong, Canada, among others. She has earned competitive awards including the 2017-2018 NINDS Mentoring Institute for Neuroscience Diversity Scholars Fellowship; a fully-funded, visiting scholar invitation to the University of Sydney in 2012; and the 2011 American Statistical Association Gertrude M. Cox Award (awarded to two of 1200 applicants in North America). She has presented in over 35 invited department seminars and invited (inter)national conference sessions (rate of 5 per year). Her research innovates new statistical methods that solve important neuroscience and biomedical problems and advances the underlying theory of those methods. Her work has contributed to four exciting areas: prediction models, model selection for high-dimensional data, regression models with measurement error, mean-covariance modeling for longitudinal data. See Profile

About the Moderators

Dr. Lucy D'Agostino McGowan is an assistant professor in the Department of Statistical Sciences at Wake Forest University. She received her PhD in Biostatistics from Vanderbilt University and completed her postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research focuses on causal inference, statistical communication, analytic design theory, and data science pedagogy. Dr. D'Agostino McGowan was the 2023 chair of the American Statistical Association's Section on Statistical Graphics and can be found blogging at livefreeordichotomize.com, on Twitter @LucyStats, and podcasting on the American Journal of Epidemiology partner podcast, Casual Inference. See Profile Page

Dr. Ana Ortega-Villa, PhD, I am an Associate Director of Biostatistics at Biogen and an Adjunct Professor for the Department of Statistics at Virginia Tech. Prior to this role I was a mathematical statistician at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). I completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Cancer Institute, and a PhD at Virginia Tech. My interests include design and analysis of clinical trials, longitudinal data, mixed models, vaccines, immunology, research capacity building, statistics education, and initiatives that foster a culture of belonging. 2025 COPSS Emerging Leader. See Profile

About the COPSS-NISS Leadership Webinar Series

COPSS (Committee of the Presidents of Statistical Societies) and NISS have come together to organize and host a new webinar series focusing on leadership in statistics and data science. Plan to attend these webinars every month during the academic year! Visit the COPSS-NISS Leadership Series Page for previous webinars.

The COPSS-NISS Leadership Webinar Series is co-organized by the Committee of the Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) Emerging Leaders in Statistics and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS). The purpose of the webinar series is to promote leadership skills for members of the statistical societies at any stage in their careers. The series features conversations with leaders throughout the discipline, including leaders from major academic and government institutions, and companies. Invited speakers share their leadership stories and answer questions about their experiences. Each webinar is moderated by a member of the COPSS Emerging Leaders in Statistics program.

Access the Full COPSS-NISS Leadership Webinar Series YouTube Playlist | COPSS-NISS Leadership Webinar Series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoRtupvDJTjvFukMcO6NfDr0GvxDsIj81