Johns Hopkins Biostatistics

10/11/2026

Thank you to everyone who attended, participated in, organized, and gave a speed talk at our Biostatistics Retreat at the Homewood Bloomberg Student Union earlier this month! There was tremendous energy, community building and important conversations that are sure to continue into the new year.

10/06/2026

Meet Yicheng Shen, a third-year PhD student in Biostatistics whose areas of focus include federated learning, causal inference, longitudinal data analysis, and evidence synthesis. Yicheng is also the student organizer for both the Biostatistics Education & Student Training (BEST) Seminar series and the Johns Hopkins Causal Inference Working Group. Learn more about Yicheng and his current research, in our article below. 👇

Yicheng Shen is a Biostats PhD student focusing on federated learning, causal inference, longitudinal data analysis, and evidence synthesis.

10/01/2026

In case you missed it: Our latest newsletter is now available to read online. Highlights include welcoming our incoming student cohort, a new faculty spotlight, remembering Patty Hubbard and more. 👇

Another academic year is upon us! The academic rhythms over the year are one of the things I love about working in education, especially the fall as we welcome new students, post-docs, and faculty. There is an energy of new beginnings, new projects, new passions. I have also been personally reflecti...

09/28/2026

Congratulations to Biostat PhD students Yanxi Liu, Nowell Phelps, and Helen Guo, who each won a Gordis Teaching Fellowship to develop and teach an undergraduate course at The Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus. 🎉👏

Yanxi's class is titled “Measuring Pain: Science, Data and Society,” Nowell’s class is titled “Creating and Critiquing Data Visualizations for Public Health,” and Helen's class is titled "Who Gets What? A Quantitative Exploration of Fairness and the Common Good in Public Health."

09/24/2026

When we asked our faculty what it's like to work at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, three words continued to repeat: collegiality, community, and collaboration. Hear directly from our faculty about what it's like to work and teach in the Dept of Biostatistics, and across the broader Johns Hopkins ecosystem.

When we asked our faculty what it's like to work at Johns Hopkins, ...

09/21/2026

Join the JHU Biostatistics Center for its upcoming (free) webinar, "Fundamentals of Data Visualization," hosted by Erik Westlund, PhD, Assistant Scientist in the Dept of Biostats. In this session on October 7, Erik will cover the fundamentals of effective visualization for exploratory data analysis and scientific communication, with an emphasis on practical techniques you can apply immediately. Register below 👇

Fundamentals of Data Visualization

09/19/2026

Thinking about getting your PhD or ScM in Biostats at Hopkins? Register today for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Open House! 🎓 Join us virtually on October 16, or on campus October 23, to learn more about the Bloomberg School and the Department of Biostatistics. Get your questions answered about our programs, community, and what it’s like to study at Hopkins.

💻 Virtual Open House, October 16: https://applygrad.jhu.edu/register/?id=ed3faae4-4928-466a-a7bd-3b93ee53816c
📍On-Campus Open House, October 23: https://applygrad.jhu.edu/register/?id=b37616a6-92a7-43e3-b5c4-a94bbfbd6931
👉 View the agenda and learn more: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/offices-and-services/office-of-admissions-services/information-sessions-and-events/open-house-events

09/16/2026

Congratulations to Biostats professor Abhi Datta, who was a part of a team that won an Excellence in Public Health Practice Award for their project “Community-Engaged Investigation of Coal Dust and Air Pollution Burden in Curtis Bay, Baltimore.”

Read more about their project here: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/air-pollution-in-baltimores-curtis-bay-community-linked-to-nearby-coal-terminal-activities-and-wind

09/14/2026

The Dept. of Biostatistics is excited to welcome our newest assistant professor, Jon Donnelly, PhD! Jon recently received his PhD in Computer Science from Duke University where he worked in Cynthia Rudin’s interpretable machine learning lab. His work spans a variety of tasks using unstructured data, from personalized risk scoring to scientific discovery, with applications in breast cancer, neurology, and virology.

Assistant professor Donnelly studies machine learning tools that integrate human medical expertise to solve problems in healthcare.

09/10/2026

A big thank you to everyone who joined us for our Student Welcome Forum! 🎉 We had a great time welcoming our newest PhD and ScM students as their mentors introduced them to the Department, and in welcoming our newest (and youngest) Biostats member, courtesy of Jiayi (Jessie) Tong! 👶💙

We also debuted our new Biostats Culture video and played a fun round of Biostats Bingo, organized by our student union (and learned we have 2 sets of twins in the Department 👯). Thank you to everyone for helping us kick off the new school year on such a fun note!