About the Program
Steering Committee
A Steering Committee of six researchers from across the participating institutions is responsible for the administration of the training program, monitoring its success, and shaping its course.
The members of the committee and brief biographical sketches are available below.
Dr. RICHARD COOK (CHAIR)
Professor of Statistics, Canada Research Chair (Tier I) in Statistical Methods for Health Research, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo
Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science
University of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1
(519) 888-4567, ext. 35549 (fax 519-746-1875)
rjcook@uwaterloo.ca
Professor Richard Cook obtained a B.Sc. in Statistics from McMaster University in 1988, and Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Statistics from the University of Waterloo in 1989 and 1993 respectively. He is currently a full Professor and a senior Canada Research Chair in Statistical Methods for Health Research at the University of Waterloo and holds adjunct appointments in Health Studies and Gerontology at the University of Waterloo and the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University. He is Associate Editor for Statistics in Medicine, Lifetime Data Analysis and Statistics in Biosciences. He was appointed Fellow of the American Statistical Society in 2008 and is the 2007 recipient of the SSC-CRM Prize. His research interests include the development and application of innovative statistical methods for the analysis of longitudinal and life history data, the design and analysis of clinical trials, and incomplete data problems. He is co-author with Jerry Lawless of the book The Statistical Analysis of Recurrent Events which was published by Springer in 2007. He collaborates extensively with researchers in oncology, hematology and transfusion medicine, rheumatology and respirology. He serves on numerous advisory boards and has consulted widely for government and industry on statistical issues of concern in public health and clinical trials.
DR. PAUL C. BOUTROS
Institute Fellow, Informatics and Biocomputing Platform, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
MaRS Centre, South Tower
101 College Street, Suite 800
Toronto, Ontario M5G 0A3
416-673-8564
paul.boutros@oicr.on.ca
Dr. Boutros is an independent investigator in the Informatics and Biocomputing Platform of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research in Toronto. He received his BSc. (Chemistry) from the University of Waterloo in 2004 and his Ph.D. in Medical Biophysics from the University of Toronto in 2009. Dr. Boutros’ research focuses on the development of algorithms for biomarker development from high-dimensional datasets. In particular, his team focuses on identifying sets of features that are maximally informative when used in combination. He has been involved in a wide range of research and clinical studies. He has published 38 peer-reviewed papers in bioinformatics, translational research, and biology. Dr. Boutros is a member of the Steering Committee of the Pan-Canadian Prostrate Cancer Genome Project, a component of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC), and is a member of the ICGC Bioinformatics Analysis Working Group.
DR. CECILIA COTTON
Assistant Professor and Graham Trust Junior Chair in Health Statistics, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo.
Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science
University of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1
519-888-4567 ext. 36131
ccotton@uwaterloo.ca
Dr. Cotton received her BMath (Statistics) in 2002 and MMath (Statistics-Biostatistics) in 2003 from the University of Waterloo. She completed her PhD in Biostatistics in 2009 at the University of Washington where she worked as a Research Assistant for the National Wilms Tumor Study at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. There her research focused on identifying factors affecting the risk of developing second malignant neoplasms and the rate of long-term survival among Wilms Tumor patients. She is currently an Assistant Professor and Graham Trust Junior Chair in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo. Her research interests include joint modeling of longitudinal and survival data, comparing dynamic treatment regimens based on observational data, causal inference and collaborative health research.
DR. KEYUE DING
Senior Biostatistician, NCIC-CTG, Assistant Professor, Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, Queen’s University.
Queen’s University
NCIC Clinical Trials Group
First Floor, Cancer Research Institute
Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6
613-533-2901 ext. 77705
kding@ctg.queensu.ca
Dr. Keyue Ding received his PhD in Statistics in 1999 from the University of Alberta, and subsequently completed postdoctoral training in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Rochester. He joined the NCIC Clinical Trials Group and Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at Queen’s University in 2001. As a Senior Biostatistician at NCIC Clinical Trials Group, his primary responsibilities are the design and analysis of the cancer clinical trials conducted by the Group. Dr. Ding has research interests in sequential analysis, statistical quality control procedures, statistical computing and health economic analyses.
DR. RALPH MEYER
Director, NCIC-CTG, NCIC-CTG, Kingston, Ontario
Queen’s University
10 Stuart Street
Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6
613-533-6430
Fax: 613-533-2941
rmeyer@ctg.queensu.ca
Dr. Meyer received his medical degree from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario in 1978. He completed a rotating internship at Ottawa General Hospital and residency training in Internal Medicine (1982) and Hematology (1984) at McMaster University. He joined the Department of Medicine, McMaster University in 1984 where his academic interests included clinical trials and health services research in the hematologic malignancies. Dr. Meyer was Professor in the Department of Medicine, Associate Member in the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine and Division Director of Hematology (2000 – 2006) at McMaster University, and Head of Hematology-Oncology at the Juravinski Cancer Centre. In April 2006, Dr. Meyer joined the NCIC-CTG as Director Designate and in 2007 became the Group’s Director. He holds the Edith Eisenhauer Chair in Clinical Cancer Research and is Professor in the Departments of Oncology, Medicine and Community Health and Epidemiology at Queen’s University. As Director of the NCIC-CTG, Dr. Meyer has responsibilities for ensuring the quality of its scientific agenda and operational processes and also takes an active part in the development, execution and analysis of many of the Group’s trials. His own research interests are in the hematologic malignancies and in the generation of clinical trials evidence for use in health care policies.
DR. WEI XU
Senior Biostatistician, Department of Biostatistics, Princess Margaret Hospital, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto.
Department of Biostatistics
Princess Margaret Hospital
610 University Avenue, 15-507
Toronto, Ontario M5G 2M9
416-946-4497
wxu@uhnres.utoronto.ca
Dr. Xu a senior biostatistician in Princess Margaret Hospital in the Department of Biostatistics and Assistant Professor of Biostatistics in School of Public Health, University of Toronto. He received his Ph.D. in Biostatistics in University of Toronto in 2006. Dr. Xu’s research interests focus on the design and analysis of clinical trials as well as statistical genetics. He has been involved in a wide range of clinical studies and studies of human genetic. As co-Investigator on several previous federally (Canadian) funded and NIH funded grants, he has been involved in study design and statistical modeling and analysis in a wide range of clinical research studies and studies of human genetics. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers in medicine, human genetics, and statistics. Dr. Xu has served as a board member on the Ontario Cancer Research Ethics Board (OCREB) of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) since 2008.
