Data Science and Environmental Health Science Symposium draws area researchers

(left to right) Dr. Francesca Dominici, Harvard University; Dr. Michelle Heacock, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS); Dr. Ricky Woychik, Director of NIEHS; Dr. Seth Kullman, NC State; Dr. Fred Wright, NC State.

On April 5, 2024, the university hosted a symposium on “Data Science and Environmental Health Science Research” at NC State’s Hunt Library. The symposium, with an organizing committee including Department Head Dr. Kimberly Sellers and Professor Fred Wright, covered numerous areas of statistical methodology and practice applied to problems in environmental sciences. An introduction by Dr. Rick Woychik, Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, highlighted institute priorities and funding initiatives in statistics and data sciences. The keynote talk was given by Dr. Francesca Dominici, the Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population, and Data Sciences in the Department of Biostatistics at Harvard University. Dr. Dominici described her group’s work in establishing links between air pollution and adverse effects on human health, using a multiplicity of data sources combined with observational epidemiology and causal inference, and the translation of this work to regulatory action. Other presentations throughout the day highlighted diverse application areas including the study of gene by environment interactions, massive disease-exposure association mapping, multi-omics technologies to investigate the effects of exposures, and toxicogenomic profiling to prioritize chemicals for further study. Statistics Department students and faculty were well represented in poster presentations, including graduate students Xiaodan Zhou (pictured with Dr. Sellers (left) and Dr. Dominici (center)) and Nate Wiecha, and supervising faculty Drs. Brian Reich and Emily Griffith.

Author: Fred Wright