The Duke Master of Biostatistics Program and PhD Programs held the first joint PhD and Masters graduation ceremony on Saturday, May 12, 2019.
Dr. Huiman Barnhart, Director of Graduate Studies for the PhD program welcomed everyone and congratulated Fan Li, as the first PhD candidate to successfully complete his PhD in the Department. She reviewed Fan Li’s outstanding career at Duke in both the Masters and PhD programs; publishing numerous articles and studies, mentoring many students of the program and being an integral part of the Department as a whole. He will be missed! Dr. Fan Li has accepted an offer to be an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics with the Department of Biostatistics in the Yale School of Public Health.
Dr. Greg Samsa also gave remarks centering on the need for reproducibility in research and how as biostatisticians our graduates are specifically trained to catch anomalies that other researchers might miss. Amy Kim gave poignant comments about her challenges in the process of getting her degree and her gratefulness to the program and her fellow students for this experience. Several students received awards; Yunji Zhou received the Chair’s Academic Recognition Award for outstanding academic performance, Kuei Yueh Ko received the Student Leadership Award and three students were recognized for exemplary efforts in collaborative and statistical research in their Master’s Project. They are: Lu Liu for Methodological Track Kristie Kusibab for Clinical and Translation Track and Lync Liang for the Data Science Track.
The University-wide commencement ceremony was held the following day at Brooks Field at Wallace Wade Stadium. Former President and CEO of Time’s Up and Duke alumna and Board of Trustees member Lisa Border gave an energetic address, exhorting the students: “Failure isn’t fatal, it’s feedback.” President Price wrapped it up with: “Remember that you are not going it alone. We are all fortunate to be part of a community of extraordinary people of accomplishment and purpose, here in Durham and across the world, a Duke family now hundreds of thousands strong. And we rely on each other for help and support, for intellectual challenge, and for fellowship and encouragement to excel.”
Of the 29 graduates, nine will now pursue a PhD in prestigious programs at Duke Biostatistics and Computational Biology, the Universities of Florida, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vanderbilt, and Texas Health Center. Graduates have also already accepted a position at Syneos Health and Pharpoint. Other students have accepted positions in academic medicine at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Vanderbilt University, the Universities of Delaware and Utah as well as Duke Molecular Physiology and the Duke Global Health Institute. Overall, the class boasts of a 93% placement rate.
Well done class of 2019!
