Use and Misuses of Statistical methods in epidemiological and clinical trial studies

Dr. Tilahun Abebe is a Professor in the Department of Biology, University of Northern Iowa. Dr. Abebe is involved in teaching and research in genetics, genomics, and plant biotechnology. Dr. Abebe’s research focuses on two broad areas: genetic modification of cereals for resistance to scab disease and resistance of cereals to drought. Scab is a disease of cereal crops caused by a fungal pathogen Fusarium graminearum. Scab causes huge economic losses in barley and wheat in the temperate and subtropical regions of the world. The disease primarily affects the head (spike). Infected kernels have poor quality and accumulate mycotoxins, which makes them unsuitable for malting, human consumption, or animal feed. Dr. Abebe uses various molecular genetics approaches to enhance resistance of barley against scab, including CRISPR/Cas and modification of barley with disease resistance genes using Agrobacterium and gene gun transformation. Dr. Abebe’s research on drought tolerance focuses on the genetics and physiological mechanisms of drought tolerance of cereal crops at the reproductive stage using barley as a model. The inflorescence of barley is composed of many small flowers (florets). Each kernel in turn is covered by a husk, which is composed of leaf-like photosynthetic structures. Dr. Abebe uses proteomics (2D-PAGE and LC-MS), metabolomics (GC-MS and LC-MS), and transcriptomics (next-generation sequencing) to unravel how these photosynthetic structures respond to drought later in the growing season. Dr. Abebe’s research is supported by the University of Northern Iowa, State of Iowa, U.S. Wheat and Barley Scab initiative, and U.S. Barley Genome Project. Dr. Abebe has a strong interest in the interplay of genetic ancestry, race/ethnicity, and environmental exposure risk factors in human complex diseases including asthma. Dr. Abebe collaborates with Dr. Tesfaye Mersha, Department of Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, in these areas.

Dr. Tesfaye Mersha is currently an Associate Professor in Human Genetics at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, where he leads the Population Genetics, Ancestry, and Bioinformatics (pGAB) Laboratory (https://research.cchmc.org/mershalab/Home.php). Dr. Mersha’s research combines quantitative, ancestry and statistical genomics to unravel genetic and non-genetic contributions to complex diseases and racial disparities in human populations, particularly asthma and asthma-related allergic disorders. Much of his research is at the interface of genetic ancestry, statistics, bioinformatics, and functional genomics, and he is interested in crossline disciplines to unravel the interplay between genome and envirome underlying asthma risk. He is a recognized expert in the field of genetic ancestry, race, association analysis, admixture mapping and mining functional genomic databases related to complex diseases.  His research is continuously funded by federal and institutional grant including an independent National Institute of Health (NIH) R01 Award. His achievements and contributions have been recognized by numerous invitations to serve in grant reviewing panels, lead workshops, and gave invited lecture at both national and international academic institutions. These include his recent appointment to serve on the NIH Genetics of Health and Disease (GHD) Study Section (2018-2024), and moderating a panel on use of ancestry, race and ethnicity in biomedical research at the NIH conference. He has a strong passion for national and international collaborative research specifically in global health including public health genomics and data science.

Dr. Yonas Gizaw is Principal Scientist, at the Procter and Gamble Co and Adjunct Professor of Carbohydrate Chemistry at Purdue University. His current responsibilities include Advanced cleaning platform technology leader. Dr. Yonas expertise include surfaces and interface sciences, nanotechnology, wetting phenomena, surfactants, and polymers. Prior to his current assignment, Dr Yonas has held technical leadership positions in strategic and innovation technologies for detergent and cleaning products, foods, and beverages. His innovative and patented technologies have generated hundreds of millions USD revenue for the company.
He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his innovation and leadership among them. Distinguished Purdue Agriculture Alumni Award, Outstanding Food Science Award (Purdue) Innovation Award, (P&G), Connect and Develop Award (P&G), Mastery & Excellence Award (P&G), Chemistry Award (Alabama A&M), Lloyd Ferguson Young Scientist Award (NOBCChE), Outstanding community Service Award (APNET), and led AACC –International: Chairman of Carbohydrate Division, Institute of Food Technologists: Chairman of Carbohydrate division, Global sustainability Special interest teams in P&G, Biopolymers Special Interest Teams.

Dr. Kasegn Tekletsadik is an experienced inventor and technical leader with expertise in new technology and new product Development to solve complex technical challenges. In his career he has been using multi-disciplinary industrial and academic experiences with innovative engineering skills in Electrical Engineering. Dr. Kasegn worked for world renowned companies like Rolls-Royce, Xerox, General Electric, Philips, Applied Materials and Halliburton. His main technical expertise include high voltage, electromagnetic fields and transients, high current protection, power systems, power supplies, power electronics, applied superconductivity, fault current limiters, ion implanter, x-ray and neutron diagnostics systems.

Dr. Eyualem Abebe is currently chair and Professor at The Department of Natural Sciences, Elizabeth City State University (ECSU). Eyualem has more than 30 years of experience of teaching, research and academic management in higher education at institutions spanning three continents – Africa, Europe and North America. As an administrator he has served in various capacities including research and publication officer, department chair and part of the ECSU’s provost’s team of leadership academy. He is a broadly trained organismal biologist with emphasis on nematode biology, fish biology, and aquatic ecology – in fundamental and applied context in tropical and temperate environments. More recently his research includes exploring microbiomes using marker gene sequence-based methods and a focus on STEM education with emphasis on the challenges transitioning from high school to college poses on first year student experience. In line with this, he explores a diverse array of academic and non-academic interventions that help first year students overcome those challenges and enhance their success. For his research, he has received financial support from competitive national funding agencies such as the US National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and Department of Education. He has published more than 53 papers, 7 book chapters, and has edited one book – Freshwater Nematode Ecology and Taxonomy and collaborates globally with researchers of similar interest. He is a passionate educator and has received multiple awards both for his teaching and research, including the 2014 University of North Carolina System Board of Governors Teacher of the Year Award for his excellence in teaching.

Dr. Million Tadege is a Professor in the Institute for Agricultural Biosciences at Oklahoma State University (OSU) and holds a Mel and Mary Jones distinguished Professorship. He is also adjunct Professor at China Agricultural University (CAU) in Beijing. He was a member of the curriculum review panel for the Pan African University in Nigeria under the auspices of the African Union, and served as member of the advisory council for Ethiopian Ministry of Science and Higher Education MoSHE. Dr. Tadege is associate editor of Frontiers in Genetics. He frequently serves in federal grant review panels of NSF, USDA, DOE, and served as Ad hoc grant reviewer for overseas funding agencies including the Russian Science Foundation and the French National Science Agency. Dr. Tadege has rich experience in teaching and research in many countries including Europe, Australia, and China. His research and teaching focus at OSU is in the area of Plant Molecular Biology/Biotechnology and Functional Genomics. His research is inclined towards the basic side of biology aimed at understanding plant development and morphology. Currently two major projects in Dr. Tadege’s lab include: 1) understanding the molecular mechanism of leaf blade development, where his lab has made significant contribution in uncovering how leaves expand laterally to become flattened lamina capable of efficient photosynthesis. 2) understanding the molecular control of floral transition in which he seeks to understand the genetic and environmental factors and their interaction in regulating the transition from the vegetative to the reproductive phase with the ultimate goal of manipulating plant maturity for crop improvement. He mostly works on model species but has also developed mutant germplasm resources in sorghum and chickpea with the aim of collaborating with Ethiopian scientists. In recognition of research excellence, he was given the 2011 USDA-NIFA Partnership Award for diversified bioenergy solutions. Dr. Tadege frequently speaks in national and international conferences and delivers seminars to many respected research groups including Harvard University and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He consistently publishes in prestigious journals including PNAS, Nature Plants, and Plant Cell.  His research is supported primarily by single PI grants from NSF, USDA, and Oklahoma Center for Advancement of Science &Technology (OCAST).

Dr. Shegaw Mengiste is an associate professor of informatics at the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN). Shegaw has more than 20 years of experience in research, teaching and development activities in the domains of digital innovation, entrepreneurship, digitization of businesses and public sector organizations, project management and IT Governance. He has an in-depth understanding of the potentials and applications of emerging technological trends and how they impact contemporary society, businesses, and individuals. Shegaw has extensive experience in coordinating international research and development projects including the active NORPART funded student and staff mobility project, NORHED II project on capacity building in Higher Education institutions, and EU funded H2020 project on eHealth. Shegaw published in international journals and conference proceedings in the domains of eHealth, mobile health, systems development, outsourcing, IoT solutions.

Dr Andinet Enquobahrie is the Director of Medical Computing at Kitware Inc. He has more than two decades of experience as a contributor and leader for healthcare research and development projects in academic, clinical, and commercial settings. As a subject matter expert, he is responsible for technical contribution and management of image-guided intervention, surgical data science, and computer-aided detection and diagnosis projects at Kitware. As a director, Dr. Enquobahrie leads a group of 20+ engineers who work in various medical computing research areas including image-guided intervention, virtual surgical simulation and training, computational physiology modeling, digital pathology, medical image analysis, and visualization algorithms. Dr. Enquobahrie received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University. He has an MBA from Poole College of Management at North Carolina State University with an emphasis in innovation management, product innovation, and technology evaluation and commercialization. Dr. Enquobahrie has authored or co-authored more than 70 publications in machine learning, image analysis, visualization, and image-guided intervention. He has served as a technical reviewer for several medical image analysis and image-guided intervention journals including Medical Imaging Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI), Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, Academic Radiology, Journal of Digital Imaging, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, and the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

Dr. Daniel Enquobahrieis Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Health Services at the University of Washington. He is Director of the Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health and Associate Director of the Online MPH Program in the School of Public Health. Dr. Enquobahrie received his MD degree from Addis Ababa University, and, MPH and PhD in Epidemiology degrees from the University of Washington. He was a Yerby Postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health. As a perinatal/cardiovascular epidemiologist, his research spans reproductive/perinatal, genetic, and cardiovascular epidemiology with a focus on early life and developmental origins of cardiometabolic diseases. His research projects involve multiple domestic and international cohorts including the Omega Study, the Jerusalem Perinatal Study, the ELEMENT study (based in Mexico), the CARDIA study (nation-wide), the CHARGE consortium, and NIH’s ECHO-PATHWAYS cohorts. His teaching interests involve both undergraduate and graduate level classroom and field training in domestic and global maternal and child health. Dr. Enquobahrie has served as a member of several NIH study sections and advisory panels of the American Heart Association and the Veterans Administration. He has provided research mentorship to several doctoral and postdoctoral students, clinical fellows, and junior faculty. Dr. Enquobahrie received the 2017 Loretta Lacy Academic Leadership Award from the Association of Teachers of Maternal and Child Health and the 2020 Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring Award, one of the National MCH Epidemiology Awards, from the Coalition for Excellence in MCH Epidemiology.

Dr. Joseph Beyene is a Professor of Biostatistics and the John D. Cameron Endowed Chair in the Genetic Determinants of Chronic Diseases, Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, McMaster University, Canada. He received his BSc degree in Statistics from Addis Ababa University; MSc in Statistics from the University of Guelph, Canada; and a PhD in Biostatistics from the University of Toronto, Canada. Dr. Beyene’s research interests include methodology development for evidence synthesis with application to public health sciences, biomedical and clinical medicine; integrative statistical methods for high-dimensional data with emphasis on statistical genomics and other “omics” datasets; and statistical methods for clinical trials and observational studies. His scientific application areas span a wide range of disciplines including maternal-child health, nutrition epidemiology, rheumatology, oncology, and cardiovascular diseases. He has authored or co-authored over 350 peer-reviewed scientific articles and co-edited one research methodology textbook. Dr. Beyene is also active in mentorship and supervision of post-doctoral fellows; PhD and MSc-level graduate biostatistics and epidemiology students; undergraduate students as well as research assistants. His methods development and collaborative research projects are funded by federal granting agencies including the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Dr. Guebre Tessema is a Program Director at the National Science Foundation (NSF). During his two decades of service at NSF, Tessema served as a scientific program director of a wide portfolio funding individual investigator research in Condensed Matter Physics, to small to medium scale instrumentation at US universities and colleges, mid-scale and large scale programs, National Facilities programs all in the Division of Materials Research. Tessema has commissioned high level studies at the National Academy, Blue Ribbon panels, and national and international workshops to inform major NSF strategic decisions at the agencies.   Prior to joining NSF, Tessema had 20 years of experience in academia at US universities, University of Southern California, Memphis State University, and at Clemson University where he rose to the rank of Full Professor in 1991. Tessema’s research interest is in the search for and characterization of materials exhibiting novel electronic transport mechanisms. His research was supported by grants from the NSF and the Department of Energy. During his tenure in academia, Tessema taught physics courses at all levels, from introductory undergraduate studies to advanced graduate courses such as advanced quantum physics and superconductivity.  Tessema remains involved in the Ethiopian community and is a member of many professional societies. He is a founding member of the Ethiopian Physics Society in North America. At the international level, Tessema was a member of the International Panel for Shaping the Role of Physics in South Africa (2004); a US Embassy Science Fellow in Brazil; on the board of the African Materials Research Society. Tessema is involved in a range of activities to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in STEM fields.

Dr. Ismael Amarreh is the Chief for Minority Health and Workforce Diversity, Office for Disparities Research and Workforce Diversity at the NIMH. Dr. Amarreh is responsible for the initiation, planning, execution, assessment, coordination and promotion of research and scientist development activities within the ODWD, and in conjunction with other NIH Institutes and Centers, and governmental and international organizations as needed. In addition, Dr. Amarreh is responsible for supporting the research in Minority Health and Workforce Diversity Programs for ODWD. In this capacity, he works closely with ODWD Director and advises on policies, goals, and objectives for Minority Health and Workforce Diversity research. Dr. Amarreh works with NIMH extramural and intramural program staff to develop research and training projects and provide technical consultation to the Minority Health and Workforce Diversity community. Prior to joining ODWD, Dr. Amarreh was the Chief, Research Scientist Development at Center for Global Mental Health (CGMH) at NIMH. Dr. Ishmael Amarreh was responsible for the international research and scientist development activities within the CGMH.  Additionally, Dr. Amarreh is the Project Officer for the international research portfolio at NIMH and provides technical consultation to the global mental health community. Dr. Amarreh worked with NIMH extramural and intramural program staff to develop global projects and provide technical consultation to the global mental health community.

Dr. Amare Benor is an Associate Professor in the Department of physics at Bahir Dar University (BDU) and adjunct faculty at Addis Ababa University (AAU). Amare is a member of the South Partner of UNESCO Chair MATECSS (Materials and Technologies for Energy Conversion, Saving and Storage). He did his PhD study in environmental and electrical stability of organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). After his PhD study, he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA and as a researcher at Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) in USA for over four years. His research work in Florida and Ohio primarily focuses on improvement of efficiency of organic solar cells and light-emitting diodes (OSCs and OLEDs), development of efficient light trapping for solar cells and interfacial engineering of solar cell layers. He has led development of MSc and PhD curriculum in the areas of the Materials Science & Engineering and Polymer Physics at both BDU and AAU universities. His current research involves study of solar energy materials and solar cells in relation to device performance and stability, and  supervise multiple MSc and PhD students in the area of polymers, organic and inorganic semiconductors, solar cells, solar cell materials and related issues. Recently, he won the International Science Program (ISP, Sweden) and the Masume International Foundation (MIF, Japan) research grants award.