Rebecca Whitbeck Doerge is an American researcher in statistical

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...

, known for her research on

quantitative traits Quantitative may refer to: * Quantitative research, scientific investigation of quantitative properties * Quantitative analysis (disambiguation) * Quantitative verse, a metrical system in poetry * Statistics, also known as quantitative analysis ...

. Formerly the Trent and Judith Anderson Distinguished Professor of Statistics at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

, she is currently the dean of the

Mellon College of Science The Mellon College of Science (MCS) is part of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US. The college is named for the Mellon family, founders of the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, a predecessor of Carnegie Mellon Unive ...

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, with joint appointments in the departments of biology and statistics.

Education and career

Doerge was born in

Stamford, New York Stamford is a town in Delaware County, New York, United States. The population was 2,000 at the 2020 census. The town is in the eastern part of the county and has a village called Stamford. Geography The northeastern town line is the border o ...

. After graduating in mathematics from the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

in 1986, she earned a master's degree in statistics from Utah in 1988, advised there by

Simon Tavaré Simon Tavaré (born 1952) is the founding Director of the Herbert and Florence Irving Institute of Cancer Dynamics at Columbia University. Prior to joining Columbia, he was Director of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, Professor of ...

. She then completed a Ph.D. in statistics from

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State) is a public land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1887 and part of the University of North Carolina system, it is the largest university in the Carolinas. The universit ...

in 1993. Her dissertation, supervised by Bruce Weir, was ''Statistical Methods for Locating Quantitative Trait Loci with Molecular Markers''. After postdoctoral research with Gary Churchill at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, Doerge joined the Purdue University faculty in 1995. She chaired the Department of Statistics there from 2010 to 2015, and was appointed as Anderson Distinguished Professor in 2011. She moved to Carnegie Mellon to become dean in 2016.

Awards and honors

Doerge became a fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

and of the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...

in 2007.

Selected publications

Books

*''Statistics at the Bench: A Step-by-step Handbook for Biologists'' (with Martina Bremer, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2010) *''Using R at the Bench: Step-by-Step Data Analytics for Biologists'' (with Martina Bremer, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2015)

Articles

* * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Doerge, Rebecca W. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American statisticians Women statisticians University of Utah alumni North Carolina State University alumni Purdue University faculty Carnegie Mellon University faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the American Statistical Association