Department of Biostatistics and Data Science Awards Chen the Distinguished Alumni Award for 2025

On November 11-12, 2025, the Department of Biostatistics and Data Science at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health hosted Dung-Tsa Chen, PhD ’00 where he was honored as the recipient of the 2025 Biostatistics and Data Science Distinguished Alumni Award.

Chen completed his PhD with what was then the Department of Biometry at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health in 2000 and now serves as a senior member in the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics at Moffitt Cancer Center. He served as a co-investigator on numerous NCI-funded grants, contributing to the design, implementation, and analysis of cancer research studies. With over 100 peer-reviewed publications, Chen’s expertise spans clinical trial design, genomic data analysis, mixed models, survival analysis, and biomarker evaluation. His contributions include the development of innovative statistical methodologies for lung cancer trials, such as a Bayesian pick-the-winner design for randomized phase II trials, Bayesian predictive probability models for interim futility analysis in single-arm trials, and power calculations for biomarker studies using survival endpoints. He also pioneered an outlier-based approach to derive malignancy-risk gene signatures in breast and lung cancers, with findings published in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, and Biometrika. Chen holds multiple patents related to cancer biomarkers, such as NF-KB and E2F gene signatures.

During Chen’s visit to UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, he presented on “Integrating Statistical Thinking/Reasoning in Cancer Research: Insights from Adverse Event Analysis as Predictive Biomarkers in Oncology”. Hosting Chen and listening to his seminar also allowed former colleagues as well as current students and faculty to reconnect.