Many issues in the health, medical and biological sciences are addressed by collecting and exploring relevant data. The development and application of techniques to better understand such data is a fundamental concern of our program.
This program offers training in the theory of statistics and biostatistics, computer implementation of analytic methods and opportunities to use this knowledge in areas of biological/medical research. The resources of Berkeley Public Health and the UC Berkeley Department of Statistics, together with those of other university departments, offer a broad set of opportunities to satisfy the needs of individual students. Furthermore, the involvement of UCSF faculty from the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology also enriches instructional and research activities.
Curriculum
A PhD degree in Biostatistics requires a program of courses selected from biostatistics, statistics, and at least one other subject area (such as environmental health, epidemiology, or genomics), an oral qualifying examination, and a dissertation. Courses cover traditional topics as well as recent advances in biostatistics and statistics. Those completing the PhD will have acquired a deep knowledge and understanding of the MA subject areas. Since graduates with doctorates often assume academic research and teaching careers, a high degree of mastery in research design, theory, methodology, and execution is expected, as well as the ability to communicate and present concepts in a clear, understandable manner.
The PhD degree program requires 4-6 semesters of coursework, the completion of the qualifying examination and dissertation (in total, a minimum of four semesters of registration is required). Since there are no formal course requirements for the PhD, a program of courses appropriate to a student’s background and interests may be developed with a graduate adviser.
Qualifications
A Master’s degree in Biostatistics or a related field is recommended but not required for admission to the PhD program. Strongly recommended prerequisite courses are calculus, linear algebra, and statistics. Applicants admitted without a Master’s degree may be required to go through the Biostatistics MA curriculum; students can concurrently earn that degree with no additional cost or time to degree. Normative time to degree is 5 years.
Students entering with a relevant master’s degree in biostatistics or statistics must have a faculty advisor who is a member of the Biostatistics Graduate Group committing funding and mentorship support.
GRE Exemption Criteria
GRE General Test scores are required for admission to the Biostatistics PhD program however applicants are exempted from the requirement if they meet all of the following criteria:
- Completed two semesters of calculus for a letter grade and earned a grade of “B” or higher.
- Completed one semester of linear algebra for a letter grade and earned a grade of “B” or higher.
- Completed one semester of statistics for a letter grade and earned a grade of “B” or higher.
- Cumulative undergraduate GPA of 3.0 or higher.
- Overall quantitative/math GPA of 3.0 or higher.
- For students with a Master’s in Biostatistics or a related field, graduate GPA of 3.0 or higher.
- For international students: TOEFL score of 100 or higher OR IELTS score of 7.0 or higher
Berkeley Public Health also exempts applicants who already hold a doctoral level degree from the GRE requirement.You can find more information on the application instructions page. There is a program page in the Berkeley Graduate Application where you can indicate you meet the criteria for GRE exemption. Applicants who are exempted from the GRE are not at a disadvantage in the application review process.
Employment
Many doctoral graduates accept faculty positions in schools of public health, medicine, and statistics and/or math departments at colleges and universities, both in the United States and abroad. Some graduates take research positions, including with pharmaceutical companies, hospital research units, non-profits, and within the tech sector.
Funding and fee remission
Prospective students who are US citizens or permanent residents can find more information about applying for an application fee waiver for the Berkeley Graduate Application. Fees will be waived based on financial need or participation in selected programs described on the linked website. International applicants (non-US citizens or Permanent Residents) are not eligible for application fee waivers.
All PhD students are fully funded (including tuition and fees and a stipend or salary) with the exception of Non-Resident Supplemental Tuition (NRST) for the second year, if applicable. NRST is typically waived after the first year of study for PhD students when they advance to candidacy. Information on applying to GSI positions for biostatistics students can be found in the student handbook.
Tuition and fees change each academic year. To view the current tuition and fees, see the fee schedule on the Office of the Registrar website (in the Graduate: Academic section).
Please contact biostat@berkeley.edu if you have any questions about funding opportunities for the biostatistics programs.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
The Division of Biostatistics is committed to challenging systemic inequities in the areas of health, medical, and biological sciences, and to advancing the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusivity in Biostatistics and related fields.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Biostatistics
Admissions Statistics
Faculty
Alan Hubbard PhD
Chair, Biostatistics Division
Laura B. Balzer, PhD, MPhil
Associate Professor, Biostatistics
Sandrine Dudoit PhD
Associate Dean for the Faculty and Research, Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society
Mi-Suk Kang Dufour PhD, MPH
Associate Adjunct Professor, Biostatistics
Lexin Li PhD
Professor, Biostatistics
John Marshall PhD
Professor in Residence, Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Maya Petersen MD, PhD
Professor, Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Corinne Riddell PhD, MSc
Assistant Adjunct Professor, Biostatistics
Alejandro Schuler, PhD
Assistant Professor in Residence, Division of Biostatistics
Mark van der Laan PhD
Professor, Biostatistics and Statistics
Jingshen Wang, PhD
Assistant Professor, Biostatistics
Clinical Faculty
Emeritus
Faculty Associated in Biostatistics Graduate Group
- Peter Bickel PhD
Statistics - David R. Brillinger PhD
Statistics - Perry de Valpine PhD
Environmental Science, Policy, and Management - Haiyan Huang PhD
Statistics - Michael J. Klass PhD
Statistics - Priya Moorjani PhD
Molecular & Cell Biology
- Rasmus Nielsen PhD
Integrative Biology and Statistics - Elizabeth Purdom PhD
Statistics - Sophia Rabe-Hesketh PhD
Education - John Rice PhD
Statistics - Yun S. Song PhD
Statistics; Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences - Bin Yu PhD
Statistics
Alumni Directory
Katherine Pollard
Director, Gladstone Institute of Data Science & Biotechnology and Professor & Chief, Division of Bioinformatics, Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, UCSF
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 1998–Spring 2003
Dissertation chair: Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Computationally intensive statistical methods for analysis of gene expression data
Yan Wang
Director, Oncology Biostatistics, Gilead Sciences
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2001–Spring 2006
Dissertation chair: Sandrine Dudoit
Dissertation title: Statistical Methods for Evaluating Linkage Disequilibrium and Its Patterns Using Length of Haplotype Sharing
Maya Petersen
Associate Professor and Head of the Division of Biostatistics, UC Berkeley School of Public Health
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2002–Spring 2007
Dissertation chair: Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Application of causal inference methods to improve the treatment of antiretroviral-resistant HIV infection
Merrill Birkner
Vice President, Portfolio Strategy and Analytics at Gilead Sciences
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2003–Spring 2006
Dissertation chair: Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Statistical Hypothesis Testing and Application to Biological Data
Houston Gilbert
VP, Biometrics and Data Management, Arcus Biosciences
Biostatistics PhD, Spring 2009
Dissertation chair: Sandrine Dudoit
Dissertation title: Multiple Hypothesis Testing: Methodology, Software Implementation, and Applications to Genomics
Kasper Hansen
Associate Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins University
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2009
Dissertation chair: Sandrine Dudoit
Dissertation title: Analyses of High-Throughput Gene Expression Data
Eric Polley
Associate Professor, University of Chicago
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2005–Fall 2010
Dissertation chair: Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Super Learner
Sherri Rose
Associate Professor, Stanford University
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2007–Spring 2011
Dissertation chair: Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Causal Inference for Case-Control Studies
Iván Díaz
Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, Weill Cornell Medical College
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2009–Fall 2013
Dissertation chair: Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Non-parametric causal effects for continuous exposures
Laura Balzer
Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2010–Spring 2015
Dissertation chairs: Maya Petersen, Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Design and Analysis of Cluster Randomized Trials with Application to HIV Prevention and Treatment
Erin LeDell (Twitter, Github)
Chief Machine Learning Scientist at H2O.ai
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2011–Spring 2015
Dissertation chairs: Maya Petersen, Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Scalable Ensemble Learning and Computationally Efficient Variance Estimation
Alexander Luedtke
Assistant Professor of Statistics at University of Washington
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2012–Spring 2016
Dissertation chair: Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Evaluating Optimal Individualized Treatment Rules
Robin Mejia
Special Faculty, Department of Statistics and Data Science at Carnegie Mellon University
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2012–Spring 2016
Dissertation chair: Nicholas Jewell
Dissertation title: Estimating the size of unobserved populations in human rights: Problems in Syria and El Salvador
Oleg Sofrygin
Research Scientist (Biostatistician) at Kaiser Permanente
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2011–Spring 2016
Dissertation chair: Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Semi-Parametric Estimation in Network Data and Tools for Conducting Complex Simulation Studies in Causal Inference
Linh Tran
Scientist, Google / Lecturer, Stanford University
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2009–Spring 2016
Dissertation chair: Maya Petersen
Dissertation title: Comparative Causal Effect Estimation and Robust Variance for Longitudinal Data Structures with Applications to Observational HIV Treatment
Inna Gerlovina
Postdoctoral Scholar, UCSF
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2008–Fall 2016
Dissertation chair: Alan Hubbard
Dissertation title: Small sample inference
Jeremy Coyle
Founder, Magnolia Data Science
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2011–Spring 2017
Dissertation chair: Alan Hubbard
Dissertation title: Computational Considerations for Targeted Learning
Marla Johnson
Bioinformatics Scientist at Veracyte, Inc.
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2010–Fall 2017
Dissertation chair: Elizabeth Purdom
Dissertation title: Clustering of mRNA-Seq Data for Detection of Alternative Splicing Patterns
Cheng Ju
Research Scientist at Netflix
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2014–Spring 2018
Dissertation chair: Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Variable and Model Selection for Propensity Score Estimators in Causal Inference
Kelly Street
Research Fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2014–Fall 2018
Dissertation chair: Sandrine Dudoit
Dissertation title: Trajectory Inference and Analysis in Single-Cell Genomics
Jonathan Levy
Statistical Scientist, Genentech
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2014–Spring 2019
Dissertation chair: Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Targeted Learning in Estimating Heterogeneous Effects and Transporting Direct and Indirect Effects
Courtney Schiffman
Senior Statistical Scientist at Genentech
Biostatistics PhD, Spring 2016–Spring 2019
Dissertation chair: Sandrine Dudoit
Dissertation title: The Role of Exploratory Data Analysis and Pre-processing in Omics Studies
Chi Zhang
Product Manager, Databricks
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2015–Spring 2019
Dissertation chair: Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Targeted Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Ensemble Learning for Community-Level Data and Healthcare Claims Data
Weixin Cai
Deep Learning Researcher, Microsoft
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2017–Summer 2019
Dissertation chair: Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Targeted Learning of High-dimensional Parameters and Its Finite Sample Inference
Suzanne Dufault
Postdoctoral Researcher for UC Berkeley School of Public Health and the World Mosquito Program
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2017–Spring 2020
Dissertation chair: Nicholas Jewell
Dissertation title: The Analysis of Cluster-Randomized Test-Negative Designs: Eliminating Dengue
Alejandra Benitez
Statistical Scientist, Genentech
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2017–Summer 2020
Dissertation chair: Maya Petersen
Dissertation title: Targeted machine learning approaches for leveraging data in resource-constrained settings
Chris Kennedy
Postdoc in biomedical informatics, Harvard Medical School
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2017–Summer 2020
Dissertation chair: Alan Hubbard
Dissertation title: Innovations in machine learning: interval latent variables, causal exposure mixtures, and clinical predictive modeling
Lina Maria Montoya
Postdoctoral fellow at UNC Chapel Hill (supervisor: Michael Kosork, PhD) and UC Berkeley (supervisor: Jennifer Skeem, PhD)
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2017–Fall 2020
Dissertation chair: Maya Petersen
Dissertation title: Estimation and Evaluation of the Optimal Dynamic Treatment Rule: Practical Considerations, Performance Illustrations, and Application to Criminal Justice Interventions
Aurelien Bibaut (Google Scholar)
Senior Research Scientist at Netflix
Biostatistics PhD, Summer 2015–Spring 2021
Dissertation chair: Mark van der Laan
Dissertation title: Statistical methods for causal inference from sequentially collected data and sequential decision making
Yue You
Data scientist at Facebook
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2016–Spring 2021
Dissertation chairs: Mark van der Laan, Alan Hubbard
Dissertation title: Targeted learning for capture recapture models and treatment effect estimation
Hector Roux de Bezieux
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2017–Spring 2021
Dissertation chair: Sandrine Dudoit
Dissertation title: Inference in high dimensions with applications to the analysis of single-cell transcriptomic and bacterial genetic data
Nima Hejazi
postdoctoral research fellow (Weill Cornell Medicine)
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2017–Summer 2021
Dissertation chairs: Mark van der Laan, Alan Hubbard
Dissertation title: Nonparametric Causal Inference for Stochastic Interventions
Yuting Ye
Biostatistics PhD, Fall 2015–Fall 2021
Dissertation chairs: Haiyan Huang, Peter J. Bickel
Dissertation title: Decision Making on Noisy Data with Additional Knowledge
