Citation: For outstanding leadership and service in the biostatistics and statistics community, for her leadership in statistical education, and for her achievements in biostatistical research, particularly in the field of aging research and frailty.

Brian Caffo, Ingo Ruczinski and Catherine Crespi write:

For the past 15 years Karen Bandeen-Roche has served as the Hurley Dorrier Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a highly established biostatistician with signature leadership in research, education and administration.

A biostatistical generalist in her methods research, Karen has published nearly 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts in a wide range of topics and journals. She has contributed greatly to latent variable model methodology and led methods work in the medical and epidemiology literature. In particular, Karen has been a tireless leader in the promotion of biostatistical thinking in general, especially in the field of aging. Her leadership roles at the Johns Hopkins Center on Aging and Health have guided an organization that is the size of a large department of statistics. Karen is a Fellow of both the American Statistical Association (ASA) and the Gerontological Society of America, recognizing her contributions as a bridge researcher who is helping to close the gap between aging research and biostatistics.

Karen has been an active participant and played leadership roles in many of the major biostatistical and statistical organizations. Of particular relevance are her service as chair and executive committee member of the International Biometric Society (IBS) Eastern North American Region (ENAR), chair and executive committee member of the Caucus on Academic Representatives of the ASA, chair of the Biometrics section of the ASA, and chair of the Biostatistical Methods and Research Design (BMRD) National Institutes of Health (NIH) study section, which represents the primary funding outlet for methodological, theoretical and general applied biostatistical research. Karen also has been elected to the IBS Executive Board, which allows her to shape the vision and activities of the International Biometric Society. Since 2020, Karen also serves on the Board of Directors for the National Institute of Statistical Sciences.

In education, Karen’s leadership has expanded biostatistical instruction including onsite, hybrid and online teaching at all levels. Under her leadership the department expanded its teaching role outside of the university, having a large presence in online open education, including Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). At the same time Karen remains a dedicated and passionate in-person educator herself and is regularly recognized as such. She has won the Bloomberg School’s highest teaching award, the “Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching”, an annual award given to only four faculty members among the entire teaching faculty (offering more than 600 courses annually in the Bloomberg School of Public Health). In addition, she is a three-time recipient of the “Advising, Mentoring, and Teaching Recognition Award”, an award given annually by the students of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in recognition of outstanding educational contributions.

On July 1, 2023 Karen will step down as the chair of the Johns Hopkins Department of Biostatistics, handing over a department in excellent financial shape and co-ranked as number 1 in the nation according to US News and World Report.