Professor Rebecca W. Doerge Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Rebecca W. Doerge, Professor of Statistics and Agronomy, was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in October 2007. She, along with 470 other elected Fellows, will be recognized for her contributions to science and technology at the Fellows Forum to be held on February 16, 2008 during the AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston. She is one of six elected Fellows this year in the Section on Statistics. Other current Department of Statistics faculty members who have received this honor include Professor and Department Head Mary Ellen Bock, Professor William S. Cleveland, and Professor Herman Rubin.

Doerge received her Ph.D. in Statistics from North Carolina State University in 1993. She joined the Department of Statistics in 1995 after a two year postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University. Doerge has played an integral role in the establishment of Genomics at Purdue University, and as director of the Statistical Bioinformatics Center at Purdue, she continues to forge new ground in the exciting areas of statistical genomics, quantitative genetics, and bioinformatics. Although her formal training is in Mathematics and Statistics, her research lies on the interdisciplinary boundaries of many fields (Animal Science, Biology, Biochemistry, Botany, Chemistry, Computer Science, Horticulture, Genetics, Genomics, Plant Breeding, etc.) that are currently involved in assessing genomic based questions. Statistical genomics, also referred to as Statistical Bioinformatics, a component of bioinformatics, brings together all of these scientific disciplines into one arena to ask, answer, and disseminate biologically interesting questions and information in the quest to understand the ultimate function of DNA and epigenomic associations for each and every genome. Currently, Doerge’s research program encompasses four broad areas: development of statistical methodology for genetic mapping and quantitative trait loci (QTL) location; applying up to date genetic mapping and (e-)QTL methodology to real experimental data; assessing genetic variation and diversity of populations and germplasm collections; and understanding and analyzing gene expression, protein expression, and epigenomic data for the purpose of statistically designing and then testing (epi-)genomic/biologically based questions. Doerge has won numerous awards for both teaching and research including: Purdue’s Teaching for Tomorrow Award (1996); College of Science Outstanding Assistant Professor for Excellence in Teaching and Research (1997); Outstanding Teacher of Undergraduates in the School of Science (1998); University Scholar (2001); and the College of Science Graduate Student Mentoring Award (2007). She was elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 2007.