Davidian Wins American Statistical Association Founders Award

Marie Davidian, J. Stuart Hunter Distinguished Professor in Statistics, has received the Founders Award from the American Statistical Association (ASA). The award is one of ASA’s highest honors and recognizes members who have rendered distinguished service to the organization.

Davidian, a longtime ASA leader who served as the organization’s president in 2013, is a prominent biostatistician who has been on the NC State faculty since 1987. Much of her work is in precision medicine, which is focused on tailoring treatment decisions based on patients’ clinical, physiological, demographic and genetic characteristics. The statistical methods and software created through her research help doctors and medical researchers run clinical trials, analyze the data and determine the best way to treat individual patients.

Davidian is a principal investigator on a large National Cancer Institute grant that involves more than 30 faculty, graduate students and programmers at NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University. She is also coordinator of the Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program Faculty Cluster on Precision Medicine, spearheading collaborations with researchers from several fields at NC State.

Davidian is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is a previous recipient Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence, NC State’s highest honor in recognition of faculty achievement.

ASA is the world’s largest community of statisticians and is the second-oldest continuously operating professional association in the country. The organization typically grants no more than two Founders Awards annually, and the award does not have to be granted every year. Winners have served the association in a variety of leadership roles.