2025 Columbia Biostatistics Annual Symposium (CBAS)
Transforming Public Health Through Innovation
This year’s one-day event will showcase our newly developed statistical innovations and highlight how they advance clinical practices and influence public health policy. We will also celebrate our educational achievements in training the next generation of biostatisticians, emphasizing the importance of effective collaboration and transdisciplinary research. CBAS is designed to engage the broader scientific community in a free exchange of research ideas and implementation for the future of health-related research and learning. Please join us to see how, as a department, we work across the university and beyond to advance biomedical research through methodological innovations.
To attend, please register for free on the event page here.
More information on individual talks, speakers, and sessions will be updated here soon.
2025 Schedule
This year's symposium will take place on April 7th, from 8:30am - 5:00pm. It will feature morning and afternoon sessions with meals provided.
All sessions will take place in the 8th Floor Auditorium of the Allan Rosenfield Building, 722 West 168th Street. Lunch will be served in the Riverview Lounge in the same building.
8:30am – 9:00am Registration & Breakfast
A breakfast assortment of pastries and bagels alongside tea & coffee will be served. Please register in advance for the event here to ensure your spot.
9:00am – 9:05am Welcome & Program Introduction
A Symposium Overview will be presented by Dr. Kiros Berhane and the Planning Committee Co-Chairs. This will be followed by brief opening remarks.
9:00am – 10:30am Scientific Session: The Power of Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Psychiatry: The Role of Biostatistics and Digital Technologies in Advancing Mental Health Care
Speakers:
Ken Cheung, PhD (Professor of Biostatistics)
Linda Valeri, PhD (Assistant Professor of Biostatistics)
Joshua Gordon, MD, PhD (Chair of Department of Psychiatry)
Discussant:
Melanie Wall, PhD (Professor of Biostatistics [in Psychiatry])
10:30am – 11:00am Break & Poster Viewing
This break will give opportunity for discussion about the talks, networking, and viewing of the student poster competition in the ARB 8th Floor Lobby
11:00am – 12:30pm Scientific Session: The Future of AI in Health: Integrating Data, Statistics, Engineerings, and Domain Science for Trustworthy and Actionable AI for Health
Speakers & Talk Titles TBA
12:30pm – 1:30pm Lunch in the Riverview Lounge
Sandwiches and refreshments will be served in the Riverview Lounge for attendees
1:30 – 2:00pm Poster Viewing
We encourage attendees to view the posters in the 8th Floor Auditorium Lobby
2:00pm - 3:00pm Keynote Speaker: Dr. Bhramar Mukherjee - "The Importance of Statistical Thinking in an AI-augmented World"
Dr. Bhramar Mukherjee of the Yale School of Public Health will present the Keynote Speech. You can read more about her further on this page.
"The Importance of Statistical Thinking in an AI-augmented World"
In this presentation, I will first delve into the obvious: AI algorithms and systems developed on exclusionary datasets can lead to erroneous conclusions and misguided policies. However, while we strive for data equity and wait for the ideal scenario of globally representative and extensive datasets or training corpora, statisticians play a pivotal role in mitigating systematic sources of bias in analyzing LARGE healthcare data—an expertise that few other quantitative disciplines possess. I will illustrate my point by two examples: (1) Handling selection bias and outcome misclassification in analyzing electronic health records (2) Combining data across multiple biobanks/healthcare systems under heterogenous sampling strategies. I will conclude the talk with a call to arms for statisticians to lead efforts for creating, curating, collecting data and pioneering new scientific studies, not just remain on the design and analytic fringes. As public health statisticians, our job is not just to predict efficiently, but to prevent effectively.
3:00pm – 3:30pm Break & Poster Viewing with Refreshments
This break will give opportunity for discussion about the talks, networking, and viewing of the student poster competition in the ARB 8th Floor Lobby. Tea & Coffee will be served.
3:30pm – 4:30pm Education Panel
Session Information TBA
4:30pm – 5:00pm Winners Presentation & Closing Remarks
The winners of the poster competition will be presented, and closing remarks on the day will be given.
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Bhramar Mukherjee
Professor Bhramar Mukherjee is currently appointed as Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Biostatistics and Professor of Chronic Disease Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health. Professor Mukherjee serves as the inaugural Senior Associate Dean of Public Health Data Science and Data Equity at the school. She holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Statistics and Data Science at Yale. Prior to joining Yale University in 2024, Dr. Mukherjee built a distinguished career at the University of Michigan where she was appointed as John D. Kalbfleisch Distinguished University Professor of Biostatistics and the first woman Chair of the Department of Biostatistics (2018-2024). She is known for her contribution to statistical methods for integration of genetic, environmental and disease data from large healthcare databases. She is winner of many awards, including the 2023 Karl Peace award from the ASA for betterment of society through statistics, the 2024 Marvin Zelen Leadership in Statistical science award from Harvard Biostatistics. She is a fellow of the ASA, AAAS and an elected member of the US National Academy of Medicine. She has written more than 400 articles and supervised 22 PhD and 4 post-doctoral scholars. She is the founding director of a flagship undergraduate summer program on big data. She is the President elect for ENAR starting January 1, 2025, an eminent professional society for biostatisticians.