News

We are delighted to announce that Dana Tudorascu, PhD, has received conferral of tenure at the rank of associate professor by the University of Pittsburgh. 

A biostatistician with recognized expertise in neuroimaging data analysis and imaging techniques, Dr. Tudorascu conducts research in three areas: improving brain tissue classifications in the presence of aging markers such as white matter hyperintensities and cortical atrophy; imaging data harmonization; and reproducibility of neuroimaging studies in Down’s syndrome neurodegeneration and Alzheimer’s disease. In her first area of focus, she developed new methods to accurately classify and quantify white matter hyperintensities, which is critical for imaging studies in aging and Alzheimer’s disease. In her second area of focus, she has developed rigorous data normalization approaches and created pipelines to harmonize data across MRI scanners. In her third area of focus, she addresses reproducibility of imaging results, highlighting the impact of different software processing platform tissue probability thresholds, in order to establish optimal approaches.

Dr. Tudorascu serves as an expert advisor on study design and provides statistical expertise to multiple large studies. She is co-director of the biostatistics and data management core of a large National Institute on Aging (NIA) U19 grant looking at biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease in adults with Down syndrome. Dr. Tudorascu centralizes and expands data management and biostatistical resources developed under the ongoing research. In addition, she co-leads the data management and statistics core for an NIA P30 grant in the Department of Neurology, which focuses on understanding the pathological processes involved in the etiology of Alzheimer’s disease.

Complementing these collaborations, Dr. Tudorascu maintains her own robust research program and currently leads an NIA R01 focused on exploring statistical methods to improve reproducibility and reduce technical variability in multimodal imaging studies of Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Tudorascu is a standing member of the National Institutes of Health Biostatistical Methods and Research Design (BMRD) study section, and has served as the invited study section chair of a special emphasis panel.

A generous and highly sought-after teacher and mentor, Dr. Tudorascu has served as course director for graduate courses at the Pitt Institute for Clinical Research Education (ICRE), has mentored students in computer science and biostatistics, and has served on PhD and MS committees in departments including biostatistics, biomedical engineering, and computer science. Since joining Psychiatry faculty, Dr. Tudorascu collaborated with Psychiatry colleagues to form StatsEye, a University-wide collaborative for statistician faculty, trainees, and staff.

“With a unique combination of skills, and expertise in neuroimaging statistical methods, Dr. Tudorascu is an asset to the Department of Psychiatry, as well as to the broader academic and scientific communities,” said David Lewis, MD (Chair, Department of Psychiatry). “She has skillfully navigated imaging science, clinical science, computational approaches, and biostatistics, resulting both in her own research and numerous collaborations. In addition, she is an excellent teacher and mentor, and works with a wide variety of students and trainees.”

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Tudorascu!