Dr. John W. Fertig Division Head, 1940-1975

Dr. Joseph L. Fleiss Division Head, 1975-1992

Fertig was one of the youngest full professors to have been appointed at that rank at Columbia. He is perhaps best known as the statistician for the crucial research done by Dr. William Silverman that demonstrated the role of oxygen administration in the development of retrolental fibroplasia (RLF), a major cause of blindness in premature newborns. Quoting from a letter from Dr. Silverman to Dr. Fleiss on the occasion of the Fertig Memorial Service in April, 1985:

John was fascinated by the questions that arose concerning every detail of care of premature infants at the time of the mysterious RLF in the 40s and early 50s. He encouraged me to bring these questions to his classes: the long series of randomized clinical trials in the premature station at Babies Hospital, including the first use of the sequential matched pairs design, were hatched during the give-and-take in John's biostatistics classes. His infectious enthusiasm made the 'numerical method' come to life at P&S."

Fertig was also a pioneer in introducing the biometric method into psychopathology.

From 1975 to 1992, Joseph L. Fleiss was head of the Division. Under Fleiss the Division grew slowly but steadily in faculty and student enrollment. Under Fleiss' leadership, the Division began offering a Ph.D. degree in Biostatistics in 1977, through a Doctoral Program Subcommittee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Fleiss received his Ph.D. from the Department of Mathematical Statistics at Columbia in 1967. Prior to this time he worked full-time under Joseph Zubin as the sole biostatistician at the Biometrics Research Unit of the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Fleiss has been a leader in mental health statistics, especially in the area of the assessment of the reliability of diagnostic categories, and the measures, models, and control of errors in classification. He was one of the first to notice the equivalence of weighted kappa and the intraclass correlation coefficient as measures of reliability in categorical data. His textbooks, Statistical Methods for Rates and Proportions and The Design and Analysis of Medical Experiments have been extremely influential in the teaching of biostatistics.

In a tragic loss to Columbia and the entire profession, Parkinson's disease forced Professor Fleiss first to step down as Division Head in 1992 and finally to withdraw from an active role in the Division in 1996. John Van Ryzin joined the Division of Biostatistics in 1981, and served as chair of the Doctoral Program Subcommittee from 1983 to 1987. During this time, close cooperative relations flourished between the Division and the Department of Statistics. His brief tenure here at Columbia was cut short too, tragically, by his early death. Van Ryzin was a recognized leader in the areas of analysis of censored data, empirical Bayes methods, and quantitative risk assessment.

Dr. Paul Meier Division Head, 1992-1998

Professor Paul Meier, a leading figure in survival analysis and clinical trials, came to Columbia in 1992 to become both Head of Biostatistics and Chair of Statistics. During his tenure, cooperative efforts between the two departments continued and expanded, including the cross-listing of many key courses. Prof. Meier was a major force in appointing, promoting, and tenuring of Biostatistics faculty. During this period, the Division also moved from its minimal space in the NYC Department of Health building into newly renovated premises on the 18th floor of the Presbyterian Hospital Building. Under the leadership of Professor Melissa Begg, the Division began offering MS tracks in Clinical Research Methods and Patient-Oriented Research. These tracks serve the increasing number of clinical research faculty and trainees who see certification in biostatistics as essential to their careers.

Dr. Bruce Levin Department Head, 1999-Present

Professor Meier stepped down as Division Head in February, 1998, and the Dean appointed Professor Bruce Levin as his successor in March, 2000. With his appointment, the School has committed new funding to the Department for major growth in the areas of new faculty appointments, expanded space in the new Mailman School of Public Health Building at 722 West 168th Street, new doctoral fellowship support, and computing and administrative support. The Department also began participating in a new training program in Biostatistics and Human Sexuality Research, administered through the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, together with existing programs in Cancer Biostatistics and Mental Health Statistics. The Department has received several new methodology research grants, and it is expanding in a major way its Statistical Analysis Center for multicenter randomized clinical trials.

* This is a liberal adaptation from "A History of the Columbia School of Public Health" by the late Prof. Samuel Wolfe and Dr. Annette Ramirez, to whom we are indebted.