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Marie
Diener-West
,
PhD

Helen Abbey and Margaret Merrell Professorship
Chair, Master of Public Health Program
Professor

Marie Diener-West, PhD ’84, Chair of MPH Program and Professor of Biostatistics, teaches and collaborates in the design, conduct, and analysis of multicenter clinical trials.

Contact Info

615 N. Wolfe Street, Room W1015
Baltimore
Maryland
21205
US        
410-955-0958

Research Interests

Biostatistics; clinical trials; ocular melanoma; statistical methods; statistical education
Experiences & Accomplishments
Education
PhD
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
1984
Overview
Dr. Diener-West's research interests have focused on the design, conduct, and analysis of clinical trials. For 20 years, she was the Study Statistician and Deputy Director of the Coordinating Center for the Collaborative Ocular Melanoma Study (COMS). The COMS is a set of long-term multicenter clinical trials sponsored by the National Eye Institute and conducted at 43 clinical centers to investigate the effectiveness of different radiation treatments on prolonging survival of patients with choroidal melanoma. Areas of interest have included risk factors for mortality and predictors of growth of small melanoma, agreement among multiple raters, and correlation of different methods of measuring tumor dimensions. Other research interests include treatment trials for cystic fibrosis and a longitudinal assessment of the relationship between sleep disorders and heart disease in the Sleep Heart Health Study. She is a member of the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Center for Clinical Trials.
Dr. Diener-West's interests also focus on the statistical education of health professionals. Since 1990, she has taught courses in introductory statistical methods and data analysis. With Dr. Sukon Kancharaksa, she developed and co-instructed the course Fundamentals of Epidemiology, the School's first distance education course.
Honors & Awards
Heritage Award, Johns Hopkins University (2017)
Fellow, Society for Clinical Trials (2012)
ASPH/Pfizer Award for Teaching Excellence (2010)
Helen Abbey and Margaret Merrell Professor of Biostatistics Education (2004- present)
Ernest Lyman Stebbins Medal (2007)
ASPH/Pfizer Public Health Academy of Distinguished Teachers (2007)
Fellow, American Statistical Association (2006)
Statistics Section Award for Academic Statistics, American Public Health Association (2003)
Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching (1991, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021)
Teaching Excellence Award in Distance Education (2002)
Advising, Mentoring, and Teaching Recognition Award (1995,1996 and 2017)
Delta Omega (Alpha Chapter) Honorary Public Health Society (1995)
Select Publications
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