University of Florida faculty member Ji-Hyun Lee, DrPH, has been nominated for the presidency of the American Statistical Association (ASA) for the 2025 term. She is one of two ASA presidential candidates on the ballot for an election next spring. The ASA is the world’s largest community of statisticians, with more than 16,000 members in more than 90 countries.
Lee is a professor of biostatistics in the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions and the UF College of Medicine. She also serves as the director of the Division of Quantitative Sciences at the UF Health Cancer Center, providing strategic leadership and administrative direction for Cancer Center scientists.
She has more than 20 years experience in various aspects of cancer research, including health disparity, early oncology clinical trials, smoking cessation, and data science education for youth. She has authored over 160 peer-reviewed articles with a particular focus on therapeutic cancer research, social behavior intervention development, and population sciences in the health disparity field. Lee is an elected ASA fellow and a certified professional statistician through the ASA. She served on ASA’s board of directors for three years.
Lee’s candidacy represents several firsts. If elected, she would be the first Korean American statistician, the first woman statistician from Florida, and the first cancer center applied biostatistician in the history of the ASA presidency.
She is currently exploring two initiatives to undertake if elected. First, she plans to advocate for indispensable team scientists and help isolated statisticians to enhance rigorous scientific practices. She would also like to increase opportunities in data science and statistics for young people from underrepresented groups.
“Given the exponentially growing data-intensive jobs and data usage in a wide range of sectors, data science and statistics education is critical for building America’s workforce and competitiveness,” Lee said. “Furthermore, this discipline is an incredibly well-paying field to start one’s career. Unfortunately, minority populations are rarely seen in statistics and data science fields.”
ASA members will vote for their 2025 president in April 2023, with results expected in June.