Jeffrey Tullis Leek is an American biostatistician and

data scientist Data science is an interdisciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge and insights from noisy, structured and unstructured data, and apply knowledge from data across a bro ...

working as a Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is an author of the Simply Statistics blog, and runs several online courses through Coursera, as part of their Data Science Specialization. His most popular course is The Data Scientist's Toolbox., which he instructed along with Roger Peng and Brian Caffo. Leek is best known for his contributions to

genomic Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

data analysis and critical view of research and the accuracy of popular statistical methods.

Education

Leek graduated from

Utah State University Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public land-grant research university in Logan, Utah. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. With nearly 20,000 students living on or near campus, USU is Utah's ...

in 2003 with his Bachelors of Science. Then went on to study at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

achieving a

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in 2005 and completed a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

Biostatistics Biostatistics (also known as biometry) are the development and application of statistical methods to a wide range of topics in biology. It encompasses the design of biological experiments, the collection and analysis of data from those experime ...

in 2007 with John Storey as his doctoral advisor.

Research and career

Leek joined

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

as an assistant professor in

in 2009, working at the

Bloomberg School of Public Health Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and ma ...

. In 2014 he became an associate professor in

and

Oncology Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an ''oncologist''. The name's etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγκος (''ó ...

. Leek works in The Center for Computational Biology at Johns Hopkins University creating statistical packages for analysis of genomes. He also co-edits a blog, Simply Statistics with Roger Peng and Rafa Irizarry, which contains a mix of articles on

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

and

meta-research Metascience (also known as meta-research) is the use of scientific methodology to study science itself. Metascience seeks to increase the quality of scientific research while reducing inefficiency. It is also known as "''research on research''" ...

. Leek has conducted several talks at prestigious universities and locations such as a colloquium series at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and a lecture at the New York Genome Center titled “Building a Comprehensive Resource for the Study of Human Gene Expression with Machine Learning and Data Science” as a part of their lecture series. He is an expert in reproducibility, and his work and opinions have been published in notable scientific and medical journals such as ''Nature'' and the ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.'' Leek wrote a self-published book, ''The Elements of Data Analytic Style'' and is considered an expert on replication. He is currently vice president and chief data officer at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, WA.

Recognition

Leek was elected as a

Fellow of the American Statistical Association Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The number of new fellows per year is limited ...

in 2020.

Selected publications

Leek's highly cited works include * "Capturing Heterogeneity in Gene Expression Studies by Surrogate Variable Analysis" * "Tackling the Widespread and Critical Impact of Batch Effects in High-Throughput Data"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leek, Jeffrey Living people Biostatisticians American statisticians Data scientists 1979 births University of Washington alumni Utah State University alumni Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health faculty Fellows of the American Statistical Association