Blog

On Friday, October 27, at 1:30 p.m. Central Time, application developer Savannah Obregon will speak about the {redcapAPI} R package in a free presentation on Microsoft Teams. She is a member of the Vanderbilt Biostatistics team that developed a data processing layer within the package to help support clinical trials. REDCap is a secure web platform simplifying database and survey creation, while R facilitates reproducible research through its scripting capabilities, R Markdown integration for reports and package management. Originally designed for exporting the raw API data from REDCap, redcapAPI now includes robust data handling, ensuring reliable retrieval of analysis-ready data. It optimizes the transformation of raw REDCap data with cryptographic storage of API keys and streamlined API calls, making it a powerful tool.

Obregon graduated from Lipscomb University with a bachelor's degree in information technology management, with a minor in business and concentration on web development. She was a speaker at R/Medicine 2023, and she presented a poster on {redcapAPI} during the department's 20th anniversary celebration. She has made crucial contributions to the data coordination of ACTIV-6 since joining our department.

For access to this presentation, contact Ryan Moore, organizer of the department's Statistical Computing Series.

TOP ROW: senior associate Yuwei Zhu, PhD student Xinyu Zhang, PhD student Siwei Zhang, quality assurance analyst Vinni Yenukonda, professor Fei Ye, PhD student Elisa Yazdani, PhD student Lydia Yao, PhD student Teresa Yang, research assistant professor Jing Yang, PhD candidate Yan Yan

ROW 2: PhD student Bailu Lucy Yan, lead biostatistician Meng Xu, biostatistician Ke Xu, PhD student Jiangmei Ruby Xiong, research professor Pingsheng Wu, application developer Hui Wu, MS student Julia Whitman, PhD candidate Hannah Weeks, lead biostatistician Li Wang, research assistant professor Jing Wang, chief business officer Janey Wang

ROW 3:  PhD candidate Shengxin Tu, PhD candidate Julia Thome, health services research analyst Afan Swan, biostatistician Yunyi Sun, PhD candidate Tianyi Sun, senior biostatistician Lili Sun, associate program manager Kayla Sullivan-Johnson, program manager Cierra Streeter, biostatistician Tess Stopczynski, biostatistician Ine Sohn, PhD student Kay Soga

ROW 4: adjunct professor Ayumi Shintani, lead biostatistician Yaping Shi, PhD student Lan Shi, PhD student Danni Shi, senior IT project manager Terri Scott, VN-BioStat fellow Safiya Sani, research assistant professor Laurie Samuels, biostatistician Paridhi Ranadive, statistical genetic analyst III Marisol Ramirez-Solano, associate professor Rameela Raman, senior biostatistician Heather Prigmore

ROW 5: associate Sharon Phillips, lead biostatistician Amy Perkins, research associate professor Jackie Pennings, application developer Savannah Obregon, assistant in biostatistics Hui Nian, PhD student Yunbi Nam, educational programs manager Chazlie Miller,senior biostatistician Elizabeth McNeer, associate biostatistician Cara Lwin, professor Qi Liu, assistant professor Jinyuan Liu

ROW 6: associate professor Dandan Liu, adjoint assistant professor Pei-Ying Emily Lin, biostatistician Vicky Liao, biostatistician Yajing Li, postdoc Jia Li, PhD student Lisa Levoir, senior program manager Jess Lai, PhD student Yeji Ko, PhD candidate Jamie Joseph, PhD student Megan Jones

ROW 7: biostatistician Cass Johnson, biostatistician Xiangyu Ji, lead biostatistician Cathy Jenkins, biostatistician Rebecca Irlmeier, research assistant professor Li-Ching Huang, senior financial analyst Sandra Hewston, senior biostatistician Cassie Hennessy, MS student Megan Hall, assistant professor Amber Hackstadt, business process manager Nicole Gunnison

ROW 8: senior associate Tebeb Gebretsadik, senior biostatistician Yue Gao, PhD student Alexis Fleming, research professor Irene Feurer, senior biostatistician Xiaoke Sarah Feng, principal biostatistician Run Fan, health services research analyst Andrea Elhajj, research assistant professor Svetlana Eden, senior program manager Peg Duthie, research assistant professor Liping Du, professor Mary Dietrich

ROW 9: associate program manager Margaret Cullum, grants manager Pattie Council, vice chair of diversity and inclusion Leena Choi, research assistant professor Sheau-Chiann Chen, vice chair of education Qingxia Cindy Chen, research associate professor Heidi Chen, visiting research scholar Charlene Chang, PhD student Marisa Blackman, biostatistician Caroline Birdrow, project manager Heather Bickham

ROW 10: principal biostatistician, Aihua Bian vice chair of informatics and collaborative programs Lynne Berry, postdoc Leila Azinfar, assistant to the chair Jena Altstatt, VN-Biostat Fellow Rukayya Alkassim, health services research analyst Onika Abrams

In observance of National Postdoc Appreciation Week, we thank our two current postdoctoral research fellows for their contributions to our department.

Jia Li (left) previously studied at Xiamen University and Shanghai Technology University as well as the German Heart Centre in Munich before joining our department four years ago. Her projects have included working on a single-cell multi-resolution marker-based annotation method (scMRMA), a single-cell and spatial transcriptomic clustering method (aKNNO), and single-cell analysis of Crohn's disease. Her accomplishments include a first-authored paper on scMRMA in Nucleic Acids Research.

Leila Azinfar (right) joined our department in April with a PhD in bioengineering from Missouri and master's degrees from Shaheed Behest University of Medical Sciences (biomedical engineering) and Amirkabir University of Technology (radiological systems engineering). At Vanderbilt, she works with Amir Asiaee, primarily on the causal effect estimation of regulatory molecules. Her publications include a first-authored paper on high-resolution imaging in the Journal of Biophotonics.