Biostatistics

Shrikant Bangdiwala

Director, Statistics; Senior Scientist

Shrikant Bangdiwala, PhD, has extensive experience in the design, conduct and analysis of multi-center observational and experimental studies, having worked on clinical and community-based randomized controlled trials in congestive heart failure, cardiovascular risk factors, functional bowel disease, and obesity prevention. His statistical research interests include non-parametric methods, methodology for clinical trials, reliability and validity of diagnostic tests, and graphical methods for descriptive analyses.

A Professor in McMaster University’s Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact, he is a former Fulbright senior specialist in global public health, and holds faculty positions in universities in Chile, South Africa and India.

He is a member of the USA NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) “COVID-19 Preventive mAb Data and Safety Monitoring Board” (DSMB) that will be reviewing and monitoring the US government-supported clinical trials of candidate preventive monoclonal Antibodies for SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19. He also chairs the Multinational DSMB for the division of AIDS at NIH, and is a member of the Gastrointestinal Drugs Advisory Committee of the FDA.

Kumar Balasubramanian

Statistical Operations Manager

Kumar Balasubramanian has been an integral part of the PHRI Statistics department since November 2013 when he joined as a Statistical Analyst; then became Statistical Analyst II in 2016, and Statistical Coordinator in 2018. In August 2021 he became the department’s Statistical Operations Manager.

Before coming to PHRI, Kumar held academic statistical positions at University of Calgary and University of Toronto. He holds a Masters in Biostatistics from University of Toronto.

Xiumei Yang

Associate Operations Manager

Xiumei Yang stared to work at PHRI’s Statistics Department in 2006. With more than 17 years of service, she has obtained broad experience and training in Data Management, EDC systems, industry standards (CDISC) on clinical trial data collections and data submissions, and strong Unix and SAS programming skills.

She holds a Bachelor of Computer Science, and Big Data Analytics Certification, from McMaster University.