Stanford Report, January 18, 2006

Biostatistician appointed as chair of Health Research and Policy Department

BY MICHELLE L. BRANDT

Philip Lavori

Biostatistician Philip Lavori, PhD, a professor of health research and policy, has taken over as chair of the department.

Lavori, who takes the department's reins from co-chairs Alice Whittemore, PhD, and Rob Tibshirani, PhD, is an internationally recognized leader in biostatistics, clinical trials, longitudinal studies and trial design. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1992 and oversaw hospital clinical trials and field studies at the VA hospitals in Palo Alto and Menlo Park for 11 years.

Lavori now directs the Stanford Comprehensive Cancer Center Biostatistics Shared Resource, which provides statistical consultation for the center's researchers.

Lavori said he's looking forward to his new role and welcomes the opportunity to work alongside a group of faculty who make "important contributions to their field on a daily basis." His primary goal, he added, is to "support my colleagues and help further their accomplishments."

"I just want to stay out of their way and let them continue their superb work," he said.

Aside from supporting his colleagues' work, Lavori's goals for the department include recruiting at least four new faculty members and building more collaborations with research partners. "We want to put full strength behind the dean's initiatives in cancer, translational medicine and the medical school's institutes," he said.

Dean Philip Pizzo, MD, is anxious for Lavori to get started. "We look forward to working with Dr. Lavori and the faculty in HRP to continue to advance the department's important work in biostatistics, epidemiology and health policy research," he said.

Lavori received his master's degree and PhD in mathematics from Cornell University. He began his teaching career at MIT and spent 10 years at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. He came to Stanford from Brown University Medical School, where he served as professor and associate chair for research in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior. He also spent two years running the VA Cooperative Studies Program.