PhD
Amos Hawley Distinguished Professor, Department of Statistics and Operations Research and Department of Biostatistics
UNC-Chapel Hill
Breast Cancer
Area of Interest
J. S. Marron is a statistician / data scientist. Among his specialties is the invention of new methodologies to tackle some of the largest data analytic challenges in cancer research. These include data visualization approaches, as well as commonly used methodologies for addressing batch effects in molecular measurements, for understanding when clusters (i.e. potential new cancer sub-types, thus feeding into precision medicine) are “statistically significant”, in the sense of reflecting true subtypes as opposed to being mere artifacts of measurement error.
Other active research involves the analysis of an increasingly ubiquitous type of data: multiple measurements on the same tissue samples. Marron’s group is leading the way on the invention of novel ways of understanding how these different types work together, and how they work separately as well. Compelling recent work integrates H&E image data (the gold standard for cancer diagnosis) together with molecular data (key to the deepest understanding of cancer as well as promising new treatments). Results to date are generating interest and engagement from both pathologists and cancer geneticists.
Awards and Honors
- Keynote Lecture: CRoNos Workshop on Multivariate Data Analysis, Cyprus, April 2018
- Harpur Dean’s Speaker Series in Statistics and Data Science, Binghamton University, March 2018
- Al-Kindi Distinguished Statistics Lecturer, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia, October, 2017
- Stat Editor’s Invited Paper, Joint Statistical Meetings, Baltimore, August, 2017
- Keynote Speaker: 6th Nordic-Baltic Biometric Conference, June 19-21, 2017
- S. N. Roy Memorial Lecture, University of Calcutta, 2004
- Institute of Mathematical Statistics Medallion Lecturer, 2003
- Special Invited Article, Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 2002
- Number 15 on ISI List of Most Highly Cited Mathematicians (over all mathematical sciences), 1991-2001
