2021

OVERALL

VISION/IDENTITY

• Department overwhelmingly voted to adopt a statement on public health. (May 2021). Shared with Provost, EVP, CHM Dean, VPOR.

 

HONORS/AWARDS

• Dr. Honglei Chen was named MSU Foundation Professor.
• Approved appointments of several HFHS biostats and epidemiology faculty.
• Dr. Nigel Paneth (emeritus) awarded MSU Lester Evans Service Award.
• Dr. Kristen Upson (assistant professor) awarded College Research Award. 

 

HIRING/RECRUITMENT/AWARDS

• Dr. Nigel Paneth retired May 2021
• Dr. Danielle Gartner hired October 2021 (retention of Dr. Paneth’s tenure line)
• Two biostatistics faculty lines approved and searches begun.
• Applied for 5 Provost “1855 Professorship” initiatives:
  • Quantitative scientist evaluation of policies and programs in joint effort of Economics, Psychology, and our department (biostats focus).   
    APPROVED!
  • Native American/Indigenous Health jointly with: University Office of Outreach and Engagement & Community Outreach; American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program.
  • Reproductive health jointly with Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology
  • Integrated epidemiology of trauma jointly with College of Nursing.
  • One Health jointly with CVM, CNS
    APPROVED!
• Henry Ford Health System affiliation and appointments
  • Approved appointments for ~10 epidemiologists and biostatisticians.
  • Approximately 15 more pending.
  • Future work will include developing opportunities to meet and collaborate on research and educational missions.

 

PROMOTIONS

• Promotions of Drs. Chenxi Li and Ana Vazquez to Associate Professors with tenure.
• Promotion of Dr. Zheui Luo to Full Professor (already tenured)

 

DEPARTMENT STRATEGIC PLANNING

• Small faculty, student, and staff group meetings with chair winter 2021.
• Materials sent to faculty in Oct with full faculty discussion in focused meeting.
• Next steps being rolled out 2022 for 3 areas: mission/vision/values; goals; areas for growth.
• Working with faculty to annual align mission percentages with effort.

 

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

• Transitioning department forms to electronic forms.
• New equipment in conference rooms.
• Change of URL from epi.msu.edu to epibio.msu.edu

• More than $4 million annual external funding by department principal investigators for calendar year 2021.
• Department faculty awarded 21 new external grants/contracts as PI and 8 new co-investigator grants/contracts.
• Average external funding for faculty AY ~30 percent.
• COVID-19 state and federal funding awarded.
• Redesign and new content for research web page.
• Quarterly post award meetings to occur (planned -- starting soon!)

• Biostats PhD receiving more qualified applicants than we can support; began to involve MSU mentors outside the dept.
• Biostats MS program changed # credits and courses to make MS more competitive.
• Dual degree (BA/MS Epi) continued with first cohort. Will evaluate after theses.
• New PhD qualifying exams rolled out successfully for both Epi PhD and Biostats PhD.
• New PhD comprehensive exams rolled out for first two Epi students.
• Epi curriculum review working group met Summer 2021 to examined peer reviewed literature and other programs. Recommendations submitted to EBCC Sept 2021.
• Department is participating in Strategic Program Assessment by the grad school (scheduling our review for AY 2023).
• Recruitment working group transitioned to regular committee.
• PhD student awarded NIH F31. (Three other PhD students applied for F31s).
• GEMS recognized as official MSU student organization, working on name change.
• Launched undergraduate DEI internship -- EQ-BEST -- with two interns hired.

• Instituted regular meetings of all department committees so that all faculty could submit requests and/or attend as needed.
• Our faculty provided service on several college and university committees.
• RPT committee drafted annual reviews of faculty on behalf of the chair.
• COVID work for university