Elizabeth DeLong named Chair

Elizabeth DeLong, Ph.D. is the new chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, effective January 1, 2009.

“Her leadership during that time gives me great confidence that Biostatistics & Bioinformatics is in good hands,” said School of Medicine Dean Nancy Andrews, M.D., Ph.D. ”When I appointed her interim chair last year, Liz articulated an impressive set of initiatives for the department. Her progress in these endeavors is already leading to a higher level of multidisciplinary activity.”

DeLong will continue to serve as statistical director of the risk modeling and analysis initiatives for three national cardiovascular registry databases. Her research interests are in the field of cardiovascular outcomes and quality-of-care research, and she sits on several editorial boards and national task forces. She also serves as co-director of the Cardiovascular Outcomes Research group in the Duke Clinical Research Institute.

A native of Maine, Liz received a B.S. and M.S. in mathematics from the University of Maine in Orono. She completed her Ph.D. in biostatistics at UNC Chapel Hill.

She initially joined the Duke faculty as an assistant professor in the biometry division of the Department of Community and Family Medicine. She spent time in both the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Veterans Administration Health Service Research and Development group.

After three years as director of biostatistics at a leading contract research organization, she returned to Duke to manage the Ischemic Heart Disease Patient Outcomes Research Team, becoming the principal investigator in its final year. She has been awarded government funding to study the statistical issues in validating risk prediction models in cardiology and also to study how managed care affects health care quality.