Sander Greenland (born January 16, 1951) is an American
statistician
A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors.
It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...
and
epidemiologist
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population.
It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidenc ...
with many contributions to statistical and epidemiologic methods including
Bayesian
Thomas Bayes (/beɪz/; c. 1701 – 1761) was an English statistician, philosopher, and Presbyterian minister.
Bayesian () refers either to a range of concepts and approaches that relate to statistical methods based on Bayes' theorem, or a followe ...
and
causal inference
Causal inference is the process of determining the independent, actual effect of a particular phenomenon that is a component of a larger system. The main difference between causal inference and inference of association is that causal inference ana ...
, bias analysis, and
meta-analysis
A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analyses can be performed when there are multiple scientific studies addressing the same question, with each individual study reporting me ...
. His focus has been the extensions, limitations, and misuses of statistical methods in nonexperimental studies, especially in postmarketing surveillance of drugs, vaccines, and medical devices. He received honors Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Mathematics from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, where he was Regent's and National Science Foundation Fellow in Mathematics, and then received Master's and Doctoral degrees in Epidemiology from the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
(UCLA), where he was Regent's Fellow in Epidemiology. After serving as an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at Harvard, he joined the UCLA Epidemiology faculty in 1980 where he became Professor of Epidemiology in the Fielding School of Public Health in 1989, and Professor of Statistics in the UCLA College of Letters and Science in 1999. He moved to Emeritus status in 2012 and the following year he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Medicine by the University of Aarhus, Denmark.
Dr. Greenland has published over 400 scientific papers and book chapters, over a dozen of which have been cited over a thousand times and several over two thousand times, including and one of which was chosen as a discussion paper by the Royal Statistical Society. He is the co-author of a leading advanced textbook on epidemiology (currently in its 3rd edition). He was made a Fellow of the
Royal Statistical Society
The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good.
...
in 1993 and 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 1998, and has received numerous teaching and service awards. He has been an invited lecturer at over 200 scientific institutions worldwide including Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Columbia, Stanford, Yale, and Erasmus universities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the National Institutes of Health, the Santa Fe Institute, and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. He has also served as a consultant to U.S. governmental agencies including the National Academy of Sciences, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Environmental Protection Agency, as well the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
. He has further served as an editor for statistical and epidemiologic journals and books including the Dictionary of Epidemiology sponsored by the
International Epidemiological Association
The International Epidemiological Association (IEA) is a worldwide association with more than 2000 members in over 100 different countries, who follow the aims of the association to facilitate communication amongst those engaged in research and t ...
.
He is a leading critic of arbitrary
significance thresholds in science and has drawn attention to
misunderstandings of p-values.
References
*
External links
Sander Greenland's profile at UCLA School of Public Health
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenland, Sander
American statisticians
American epidemiologists
1951 births
Living people
Fellows of the American Statistical Association