Biostatistics is the field of statistical methods related to biological research in areas such as public health, medicine, dentistry, and nursing.  At UAB, the Department of Biostatistics focuses on the application of existing statistical techniques to studies in these health related fields and development of new statistical techniques.

The Department has 24 faculty members and 56 staff , with a wide variety of research interests. Our department includes a Section on Statistical Genetics and a Section on Research Methods and Clinical Trials. We offer training both at the graduate and post-doctoral level.  At the graduate level, the Department offers both the MS and PhD degrees in Biostatistics.

Graduate applicants should have a strong quantitative training including calculus and linear algebra.  In post-doctoral training, efforts focus on collaboration in advancing training of clinicians in research methods through a MSPH degree, and offer post-doctoral training of statisticians in the areas of Statistical Genetics and Trials Management.

Research directed by faculty in the Department is supported in excess of $30 million annually, and includes investigations in diverse areas such as the methodological development of techniques in statistical genetics, understanding the causes of the excess stroke mortality in the southeastern US, and advancing techniques to determine the number of patients needed in randomized clinical trials using data from nested pilot studies.

The Department welcomes the development of collaborative relationships with researchers in health related fields, and is actively involved with many departments in the School of Medicine, School of Dentistry, and School of Nursing at UAB. We also have similar active collaborations with universities throughout the world.