Brenda Gillespie, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Biostatistics

Associate Director, CSCAR

3550 Rackham Bldg.
915 E. Washington
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1070

Office: (734) 647-4609; Fax: (734) 647-2440

E-mail: bgillesp@umich.edu

Professional Summary

Brenda Gillespie is an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Associate Director of UM's Center for Statistical Consultation and Research (CSCAR). She provides statistical collaboration and support for numerous research projects at the University of Michigan. She teaches Biostatistics courses as well as CSCAR short courses in survival analysis, regression analysis, sample size calculation, generalized linear models, meta-analysis, and statistical ethics. Her major areas of expertise are clinical trials and survival analysis.

Education

Ph.D., Statistics, Temple University, 1989
M.S., Statistics, Ohio State University, 1975
B.A., Mathematics, Earlham College, 1972

Research Interest & Projects

My research interests are in the area of censored data and clinical trials.

One research interest concerns the application of categorical regression models to the case of censored survival data. This technique is useful in modeling the hazard function (instead of treating it as a nuisance parameter, as in Cox proportional hazards regression), or in the situation where time-related interactions (i.e., non-proportional hazards) are present. An investigation comparing various categorical modeling strategies is currently in progress.

Another area of interest is the analysis of cross-over trials with censored data. I have developed (with M. Feingold) a set of nonparametric methods for testing and estimation in this setting. Our methods out-perform previous methods in most cases.

Selected Publications

Rochon, J. and Gillespie, B. W. (2001). A methodology for analysing a repeated measures and survival outcome simultaneously. Statistics in Medicine, 20, 1173-1184.

Laing, T. L., Gillespie, B. W., et al. (1997). Racial differences in scleroderma among women in Michigan. Arthritis and Rheumatism, 40, 734-742.

Myers, P., Lundrigen, B.L., Gillespie, B. W., and Zelditch, M. L. (1996). Phenotypic plasticity in skull and dental morphology in the prairie deer mouse. Journal of Morphology, 229, 229-237.

Burns, C., Laing, T., Gillespie, B. W., et al. (1996). The epidemiology of scleroderma among women: Assessment of risk from exposure to silicone and silica. Journal of Rheumatology, 23, 1904-1911.

Feingold, M. and Gillespie, B. W. (1996). Crossover trials with censored data. Statistics in Medicine, 15, 953-967.