Our Team
Our team is composed of biostatisticians with a wide scope of experience and knowledge. We are dedicated to delivering high-quality, methodically developed results to improve patient outcomes and clinical care.
Dexiang Gao, PhD
Core Director
Dexiang.gao@cuanschutz.edu
Dexiang Gao is a professor in the
Department of Pediatrics School of Medicine. She received her master’s and
Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center,
where she also obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. Her
research interests include early phase modern clinical trial designs, survival
analysis, count data analysis, causal inference, and prediction models, with
applications in cancer research. She began collaborating with investigators
from the University of Colorado Cancer Center in 2008 and has led the Cancer
Center Biostatistics group since 2017.
Andrew Nicklawsky, MS
Core Manager
andrew.nicklawsky@cuanschutz.edu
Andrew Nicklawsky is a biostatistician with an MS in Biostatistics from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and a BA in Numerical Computation from Saint John’s University. He has served as the manager for the Cancer Center Biostatistics group since 2020. Prior to joining the University, he has had experience working as a statistical consultant, managing state databases, and working at a Data Coordinating Center. His interests include survival analysis, data visualization, prediction models, and early phase clinical trial design. He also serves on the Cancer Center’s Safety Review Committee (SRC) and Protocol Review and Monitoring System (PRMS) Scientific Review Committee.
Junxiao Hu, PhD
Assistant Professor
Junxiao.hu@cuanschtuz.edu
Junxiao Hu is an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics School of Medicine. He graduated with a PhD in Biostatistics from Anschutz in 2019 and joined the Cancer Center Biostatistics group thereafter. He is interested in collaborations between biostatisticians and biomedical researchers. Specifically, he is dedicated to enhancing the interface between science and statistics to ensure that study designs align with research aims. His area of research specialization is in the methodology aspects of experimental design, clinical trial design and analysis with particular emphasis on statistical methods related to monitoring clinical trials (“group sequential” trial designs) and designs with multiple endpoints.
Alyse Staley, MS
Research Instructor
Alyse.staley@cuanschutz.edu
Alyse Staley is a biostatistician with an MS in Biostatistics from the University of Colorado School of Public Health and a BA in Economics from Pomona College. Her interests include longitudinal and -omics analyses, grant writing, and developing internal R functions, templates, and reference code. She also serves on the Cancer Center’s Safety Review Committee (SRC) and Protocol Review and Monitoring System (PRMS) Scientific Review Committee.
Kathleen Torkko, PhD, MSPH, MS
Associate Professor
Kathleen.torkko@cuanschutz.edu
Dr. Kathleen Torkko is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology, School of Medicine. Dr. Torkko received her PhD in Analytic Health Sciences-Epidemiology Track and a Masters of Science in Public Health from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. After completing her PhD, her main research interests involved benign and malignant diseases of the prostate and health disparities. Currently, she helps identify cohorts for research projects that use archival surgical specimens maintained by the Department of Pathology and the Pathology Shared Resource Biorepository services. Dr. Torkko acts as a bridge between the Biostatistics Core and the Biobanking Core for the University of Colorado Cancer Center. She was also the course director of BIOS6606, the required statistics course for graduate students.
Yonghua Zhuang, PhD
Assistant Professor
Yonghua.zhuang@cuanschutz.edu
Dr. Yonghua Zhuang is an assistant professor in in the Department of Pediatrics School of Medicine. He was an NHLBI BioData Catalyst Fellow. He received his PhD in Biostatistics from University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, where his dissertation focused on developing statistical methods for network inference and Graph Convolutional Neural Network algorithms in the field of genomics for disease classification. Dr. Zhuang also holds a PhD in Immunology from Sichuan University. His current research interest is the development and application of statistical methods for analyzing multi-omics data to better understand how key interactions between genes (or proteins) contribute to human diseases.
Bibliography
Vida Alami, BA
Data Analyst
Vida.alami@cuanschutz.edu
Vida Alami earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado Boulder after double majoring in evolutionary biology and computer science. She supports the Cancer Center Biostatistics group in the areas of clinical trial data management and visualization, as well as R Shiny app and package development. She has additional programming experience in Python, C++/C, and SQL.
Arpita Deb, MS, MDS
Research Instructor
arpita.deb@cuanschutz.edu
Arpita Deb is a biostatistician with an MS in Biostatistics from Drexel University, Dornsife School of Public Health and an MDS in Dentistry (Endodontics) from Dayananda Sagar College of Dental Sciences in India. She has previously worked on developing models and data visualization tools to help understand patterns of geographic variations in cardiovascular health. Her areas of expertise include survival analysis, longitudinal data analysis, and statistical modeling with applications in public health research. She has additional interests in omics data and experimental (including clinical trial) design.