Skip to main content
Cornell university
Cornell Statistics and Data Science Cornell Statistics and Data Science
  • About Us

    About Us
    Cornell's Department of Statistics and Data Science offers four programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Undergraduates can earn a BA in statistical science, social...

    Welcome to the Department of Statistics and Data Science
    History
    Facilities
    Statistics Graduate Society
    Recently Published Papers
  • Academics

    Academics

    Undergraduate
    PhD
    MPS
    PhD Minor in Data Science
    Courses & Course Enrollment
  • People

    People

    Faculty
    Field Faculty
    PhDs
    Emeritus Faculty
    Academic Staff
    Staff
    Research Areas of Expertise
    Statistical Consultants
  • News and Events

    News and Events

    Events
    News
  • Resources

    Resources

    Professional Societies and Meetings
    Affiliated Groups
    Career Services
    Cornell Statistical Consulting Unit
  • Alumni

    Alumni
    Cornell's Statistics and Data Science degrees prepare students for a wide variety of careers, from academia to industry.  See the After Graduation page for a general overview of...

    Alumni Profiles

Search form

You are here

  1. Home 
  2. News

Bandeen-Roche, pioneering biostatistician, to receive Distinguished Alumni award

A color photo showing a woman smiling for a photo over a blue stylized backgroun
Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Aging isn’t an exact science, but through biostatistics – the science and practice of learning from biomedical data – pioneers like Karen Bandeen-Roche ’88, Ph.D. ’90, have uncovered more accurate ways to measure frailty and resilience in older people as well as the factors that lead to both.

For more than 30 years, Bandeen-Roche – who received her doctoral degree in operations research and industrial engineering from Cornell – has been a leading biostatistician and researcher on aging, frailty, and resilience, publishing nearly 300 peer-reviewed papers throughout her career.

“Before the 1990s, frailty used to be a ‘know it when you see it’ kind of thing, but since then there's been a tremendous arc of research, including everything from how we recognize frailty to ways we can address factors that lead to frailty,” she said. 

This week, Bandeen-Roche will receive the Department of Statistics and Data Science’s Cornell Distinguished Alumni Award as part of the department’s annual Celebration of Statistics and Data Science. The day-long celebration, which is open to all Cornellians who register, takes place on Friday, September 8, in the Statler Hotel in the J. Willard Marriott Executive Education Center on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca. The celebration will include talks from seven field leaders, including four Big Red alumni. Bandeen-Roche will give the keynote talk, "Statistical measurement of frailty, resilience and – ultimately – thriving.”

“It means a great deal,” Bandeen-Roche said of the Distinguished Alumni award. “I love Cornell so much and think so highly of my experience and the professors there – particularly David Ruppert, Bruce Turnbull, and Robert Bechhofer.”

Their professional recognition is extremely meaningful, she said.

“Karen’s excellence is unmatched. She’s a pioneer researcher, an extraordinary teacher and mentor, and a visionary who’s served in countless leadership roles over the last three decades,” said Ruppert, the Andrew Schultz Jr. Professor of Engineering in the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering, Professor of Statistics and Data Science, and Bandeen-Roche’s advisor during her doctoral studies. “Through her groundbreaking work, Karen continues to inform our understanding of the factors that lead to health frailty and resilience. It’s an honor to recognize Karen as a Distinguished Alumni.”

A self-described “math geek” from a young age (her father was an atmospheric physicist), Bandeen-Roche discovered a love for statistics early on at Cornell but wasn’t sure to which research area she wanted to apply her budding statistical skills. Honestly, it didn’t matter, she said.

“I was sort of agnostic to how I was going to use statistics, just so long as I was making an impact,” she said.

At Cornell, she leaned into the course flexibility her doctoral program offered, grew closer with fellow classmates who inspired and motivated one another, and relished time spent with world-class professors, like Ruppert.

“I can’t speak highly enough of him as a Ph.D. mentor, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this,” she said. “He fostered that perfect combination of independence without leaving me out to dry. He took career support seriously, and he supports me to this day.”

Following graduation, she was offered a teaching position in the Department of Biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University and, through the guidance of a few mentors, directed her research focus to health, specifically eye conditions and aging.

“Within a year at Johns Hopkins, my research journey on aging had begun,” she said.

And it continues. In her 30-year-plus career at Johns Hopkins, Bandeen-Roche has made signature contributions in methodology for latent variable and multivariate failure time modeling as well as methods to address questions in medicine and epidemiology. She uses biostatistical and medical data to study the physiology that leads to older adults becoming frail or resilient. Being able to measure frailty and resilience allows researchers to home in on possible risk factors and develop mitigating strategies early on, she said.

“Aging evolves. It requires researchers to study factors repeatedly over time,” Bandeen-Roche said. “Statistics is crucial to do just that in a rigorous and valid way.”

Along with pioneering research into aging, she has also held numerous leadership roles, including directorship of the Johns Hopkins Center on Aging and Health and co-leadership in the Older Americans Independence Centers national network. She is a fellow of both the American Statistical Association (ASA) and the Gerontological Society of America, and has served in leadership roles for several biostatistical and statistical organizations.

For the last 15 years, Bandeen-Roche served as the Hurley-Dorrier Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In this role, which she stepped down from in July, Bandeen-Roche mentored individuals and helped the department navigate an era of many changes, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Of everything I’ve done professionally, to help other people and my organization thrive and grow is one thing that I’m particularly proud of,” she said. 

Looking back on her time at Cornell, Bandeen-Roche credits the Big Red for teaching her how to collaborate.

“The interpersonal environment was so wonderful,” she said. “As students, we learned together and helped each other to solve problems where we’re each bringing our own talents. The foundation of knowledge I learned at Cornell was everything one would need to go on, and then self-learn and thrive.”

By Louis DiPietro, a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

Recent News in News

  • New analysis helps discern benign from malignant thyroid growths
  • Researchers develop new method for studying TB, other organisms that go dormant
  • DIY tinkerers tackle defunct tech at Earth Day Repair Fair
  • Bunea, pioneering statistical theorist, receives IMS Medallion Award
  • Quantum statistical approach quiets big, noisy data

News Categories

  • News
  • Student Profiles
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Careers
© Cornell University Department of Statistics and Data Science

1198 Comstock Hall, 129 Garden Ave., Ithaca, NY 14853

Social Menu

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
Cornell Bowers CIS College of Computing and Information Science Cornell CALS ILR School

If you have a disability and are having trouble accessing information on this website or need materials in an alternate format, contact web-accessibility@cornell.edu for assistance.