The BDAC provides collaborative support in the design, execution and analysis of clinical trials and epidemiology studies conducted at the Boston OAIC. Additionally, the BDAC provides mentoring and collaborative opportunities for students and junior faculty in quantitative aspects of the study of physical function and impairments in aging. The BDAC is equipped to provide critical services on a consulting basis (e.g. in an advisory capacity in critical review of study data collection procedures) and more formally (e.g. in conducting simulation studies and power calculation). Furthermore, the BDAC provides support for ongoing projects by providing critical review and expertise in evaluating study conduct, or more extensive, pre-specified contributions to trial objectives. Support services for study completion are also available in providing guidance and assistance in statistical analyses, as well as co-authorship of abstracts and manuscripts describing study results.
Core Director
Thomas Travison, PhD
Marcus Institute for Aging Research
Hebrew SeniorLife
Harvard Medical School
- Director of Biostatistics, Marcus Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew SeniorLife
- Co-Director of the Interventional Studies in Aging Center
- Senior Scientist, Marcus Institute for Aging Research
- Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Download Dr. Travison’s biosketch
Thomas Travison is Senior Scientist and Director of Biostatistics at the Hebrew SeniorLife Institute for Aging Research (IFAR), Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He co-directs the Interventional Studies in Aging Center at IFAR. Dr. Travison’s work has focused on the interface between the endocrinology of aging and functional decline, on multicomponent interventions for the prevention of loss of independence in aging, and on graphical data display. He was lead author on the development of the first assessments of clinical significance of androgen supplementation for improvement of physical function in frail men with mobility limitation, and of the durability of androgen insufficiency in community-dwelling men. He is lead biostatistician on the NIA / FNIH Sarcopenia Consortium, which addresses the influence of body mass and function on mobility limitation and downstream clinical endpoints. He leads the analytic team for the Endocrine Society / CDC / PATH multicohort derivation of age-specific sex steroid reference ranges in men, and has designed and analyzed numerous clinical trials of function-promoting interventions in older women and men.
Paola Sebastiani, PhD
Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies (ICRHPS)
Tufts Medical Center
Director of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design (BERD)
Director of Center for Quantitative Methods and Data Science (QM&DS)
Faculty, Data Intensive Studies Center (DISC)
Paola Sebastiani PhD is the project director for the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts Medical Center. She is a pioneer in using a Bayesian network approach to integrate genetic and non-genetic risk factors from genetic association studies and introduced a novel Bayesian approach to model the genetic and phenotypic bases of extreme longevity that identified genetic signatures of extreme human longevity. She has introduced a new epidemiological metric to design studies of human longevity, new ways to assess the trade-off between genes and environment in human aging, and she recently developed a propensity score of human longevity that can be used to inform analysis of observational studies. As primary statistician in multicenter collaborations of longevity and healthy aging, including the New England Centenarian Study, the Long Life Family Study, and the Longevity Consortium, has expertise and substantial experience in analyzing a variety of aging phenotypes and correlating them with biological, clinical, epidemiological data.
Karol Pencina, PhD
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Harvard Medical School
- Chief Biostatistician, Division of Men’s Health, Aging and Metabolism
- Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Download Dr. Pecina’s Biosketch
Karol Pencina is a Chief Biostatistician at Section on Men’s Health, Aging and Metabolism at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His professional experience comprises of inter-disciplinary applications of statistical methods in outcomes research and clinical trials. He conceptualizes statistical design as well as performs actual analyses involving understudied aspect of long-term testosterone treatment on ageing in older men.Dr. Pencina is also biostatistician on the NIA / FNIH Sarcopenia Consortium, which addresses the influence of body mass and function on mobility limitation and downstream clinical endpoints. The purpose of this grant is to establish new optimal definition of Sarcopenia and assessment of its performance as a biomarker for identification of individuals at risk of physical disability. Previously, he has been professionally affiliated with the Framingham Heart Study, where he provided advanced statistical design an analytics on numerous projects related to analyzing the effect of sub-clinical disease measures on the risk of cardiovascular events and ageing. Dr. Pencina methodological research focuses on new measures of improvement in model performance and provides their meaningful interpretations. The main areas of application include building risk prediction models, evaluating the incremental performance of new biomarkers and to determine its usefulness in prevention strategies.