Dr. Scott Zeger stands as a preeminent figure in biostatistics and a transformative force in the application of statistical methods to public health challenges. He currently holds the prestigious John C. Malone Professorship in Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a joint appointment in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Zeger has dedicated over four decades to advancing statistical methodology through his continuous affiliation with Johns Hopkins University since the early 1980s. As co-Director of Hopkins inHealth, he leads a university-wide initiative that leverages medical data to enhance precision medicine approaches across the Johns Hopkins ecosystem.
Dr. Zeger's seminal contributions to statistical methodology include the development of Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) with his longtime collaborator Dr. Kung-Yee Liang, a breakthrough that revolutionized the analysis of correlated data in biomedical research. This foundational work earned him the prestigious 2015 Karl Pearson Prize from the International Statistical Institute, recognizing its profound impact on statistical practice worldwide. His research spans critical public health domains including the health effects of smoking and air pollution, the global etiology of children's pneumonia, and the development of innovative decision support tools for precision medicine applications. These methodological advances have provided essential analytical frameworks that have been adopted across numerous epidemiological and clinical research studies globally.
Beyond his methodological innovations, Dr. Zeger has significantly influenced public health policy through his expert testimony in landmark litigation against the tobacco industry on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice and multiple states. He has served on the Board of Scientific Advisors for Merck Research Laboratory and contributed to scholarly discourse as founding co-editor of the Oxford University Press journal Biostatistics and as a member of the Springer-Verlag editorial board for statistics. His commitment to excellence in education has been recognized with multiple Golden Apple Awards from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Student Assembly. Through his leadership of Hopkins inHealth, Dr. Zeger continues to drive the integration of advanced statistical methods with clinical practice to realize the promise of data-driven precision medicine for improved patient outcomes.
