Professional Summary
Dr. Murray is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics. She earned her doctoral degree in Biostatistics at Harvard in 1994. Prior to coming to the University of Michigan as an Assistant Professor in 1996, Dr. Murray worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute with the International Breast Cancer Study Group. She is currently a member of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, a Senior Biostatistician with the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients engaging in research in heart and lung transplantation, and a member of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's Data and Safety Monitoring Board as well as their Clinical Research Committee. Dr. Murray has been serving as an Associate Editor of Biometrics since January 2003. Teaching awards include a University of Michigan School of Public Health Excellence in Teaching Award in 2003 and a 2001 Teacher of the Year Award from students in the On Job/On Campus Master's in Clinical Research Design and Statistical Analysis Program. Her research interests include development of methodology for correlated censored survival data, nonparametric survival analysis with an informative censoring mechanism, group sequential analysis methods for censored survival and correlated censored survival data, transplantation related survival methodology and quality-of-life adjusted survival analysis. She collaborates heavily with breast cancer, thoracic transplantation and pulmonary researchers both nationally and within the University of Michigan medical community.
Courses Taught
BIOSTAT 601: Probability and Distribution Theory
BIOSTAT 651: Applied Statistics II: Extensions for Linear Regression
BIOSTAT 875: Advanced Topics in Survival Analysis
Education
Sc.D., Biostatistics, Harvard University, 1994
M.S., Biostatistics, Harvard University, 1992
B.A., Statistics, Mathematical Sciences and English, Rice University, 1990
Research Interest & Projects
My current research interests touch on topics in nonparametric survival analysis, missing data issues, quality of life research and sequential monitoring of survival endpoints. These interests often converge. For instance in survival analysis missing data problems occur when a clinical trial fails to collect all relevant failure time information. One nonparametric approach I have studied for this problem incorporates auxiliary longitudinal covariate information in estimation and testing in the survival setting. This allows for weaker assumptions on the censoring mechanism than the standard assumption of non-informative censoring used in nonparametric survival methods. Methodology for sequential monitoring of clinical trials with the modified statistics has also been developed. I am also engaged in research on correlated survival endpoints. The problem first came to my attention in the context of quality-of-life research through a popular quality-of-life analysis tool called Q-TWiST. This statistic simultaneously analyzes length of time experiencing toxicity, time without symptoms or toxicity and time in relapse in order to assess the tradeoffs between quality-of-life and length of life. In determining the variability of this statistic, I came to understand variability structures that I've since extended for use in other situations. My recent work makes available new methodology for nonparametrically analyzing paired censored survival data at a single analysis time or as part of a group sequential monitoring procedure in clinical trials. I collaborate with numerous members of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, mostly in the area of breast cancer research. I have also begun to collaborate with Pulmonary researchers in the Medical School and have been expanding my activities in collaborations and professional service in areas intersecting my new pulmonary research interests. For instance, I have become a member of the Clinical Research Committee for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Therapeutics, Inc. and a member of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Data Safety Monitoring Board. In addition to these activities, I am a Senior Biostatistician in heart and lung transplantation research who participates in the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR), centered in Ann Arbor. This collaboration has great potential to impact the practice of heart and lung transplantation around the country and has inspired further methodologic work in survival analysis.
Selected Publications
Murray, S. (2001). Using Weighted Kaplan-Meier Statistics in Nonparametric Comparisons of Paired Censored Survival Outcomes. Biometrics, 57, 361-368.
Murray, S. (2000). Nonparametric Rank-Based Methods for Group Sequential Monitoring of Paired Censored Survival Data. Biometrics, 56, 984-990.
Murray, S. and Cole, B. (2000). Variance and sample size calculations in quality of life adjusted survival analysis (Q-TWiST). Biometrics, 56, 173-182.
Murray, S. and Tsiatis, A. A. (1999). Sequential methods for comparing years of life saved in the two sample censored data problem. Biometrics, 55, 1085-1092.
Murray, S. and Tsiatis, A. A. (1996). Nonparametric survival estimation using prognostic longitudinal covariates. Biometrics, 52:1, 137-151.
Professional Affiliations
Associate Editor of Lifetime Data Analysis
Associate Editor of Biometrics
The International Biometric Society/ENAR
American Statistical Association
International Breast Cancer Study Group
Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Study Section
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Data and Safety Monitoring Board
|
Site Menu
back to top