Why Biostatistics?

Biostatisticians work at the interface of statistics with biomedicine and public health and solve important design and analysis questions that are critical to the success of scientific research. The advent of modern biomedical technologies like microarrays, next generation sequencers, magnetic resonance imaging, and mass spectrometry is generating enormous amounts of data that has created many new challenges and opportunities for biostatisticians. This is an exciting field where your quantitative skills are needed to help solve real-life scientific problems. Due to the rapid pace that this field is growing, biostatisticians have many exciting career opportunities and are in high demand in the job market.

Why Biostatistics at the University of Michigan?

The Department of Biostatistics at the University of Michigan School of Public Health has been ranked number one by the National Research Council. It is known for its leadership and outstanding research, teaching, and service to meet the needs of society, the university, the health research community and the statistics profession by offering graduate programs and conducting biostatistical research in health related areas.

Our students work on critical new areas of biostatistics methodological research, including statistical genetics and bioinformatics, brain imaging, causal inference, clinical trials, event history models, longitudinal data analysis, observational studies, methods for missing data and survey research. We also engage in collaborative research with other schools of public health, medicine, nursing, dentistry, and the Institute of Social Research, among others. Both of our methodological and collaborative research are well funded through grants from the National Institutes of Health and other federal and private agencies.

The University of Michigan School of Public Health is internationally recognized for its excellence and has been ranked consistently as a premier School of Public Health. Since its organization in 1941, the School has produced many leaders in public health (for example, thirteen of the presidents of the American Public Health Association have been University of Michigan faculty or graduates).

The University of Michigan is an exceptional research institution in the U.S and ranks very highly nationally in federal research funding and is consistently rated one of the best public universities by US News and World Report.