On October 8, PHRI hosted the 8th Annual Janice Pogue Lectureship in Biostatistics, featuring guest speaker Dr. Diane Catellier, who presented on how data sharing and open science can strengthen health research worldwide.
Hertzel Gerstein, PHRI’s Interim Executive Director and Senior Scientist, opened the event by reflecting Janice Pogue’s work in biostatistics and her influence on PHRI’s collaborative approach to research. “Janice set the tone, not just in statistics, but in being innovative and coming up with novel solutions for statistical problems,” said Gerstein. “She was highly regarded by everybody here as well as people at the FDA and the NIH and around the world in in the statistical world.”
Dr. Catellier, senior biostatistician at the Research Triangle Institute and adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina, presented on “Enriching the Research Infrastructure and Data Science to Facilitate Broader Sharing of Data and Resources with the Scientific Community.
Introduced by Shrikant Bangdiwala, PHRI Director of Statistics and Senior Scientist, she spoke about why sharing research data is important and how it allows scientists to build on one another’s work while maintaining transparency and reproducibility.
Sharing her experience leading the ECHO study (Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes), Dr. Catellier described how large datasets can be organized and explored responsibly. She explained the FAIR principles, which make data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable, and illustrated how tools like semantic search and artificial intelligence can help researchers discover and use relevant information from complex datasets.
She also highlighted the importance of balancing openness with privacy and ethical safeguards, noting that while shared data can drive discoveries, participants’ confidentiality and consent must always be protected. She also discussed challenges, including ensuring context and avoiding misuse of sensitive information.
