MWSUG 2010 Author and Presenter Biographies
Kerrie AdamsKerrie Adams has been using SAS for over 12 years. She holds a Masters of Applied Statistics from The Ohio State University and a B.S. in Mathematics from Otterbein College in Westerville , OH . Kerrie began her career at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus , OH where she spent 5 years as a SAS programmer and statistician. Since then, she has worked as a SAS programmer and analyst in various industries including pharmaceuticals and retail. She is currently Manager of Pricing Science at Cardinal Health where she has been since January 2009. Kerrie is actively involved in attending and planning SAS conferences and currently holds the position of President of COSUG, the Central Ohio SAS Users Group.
Chris Ake
Chris Ake, Ph.D., has been a SAS user since 1995, and he has been employed as a statistician at the University of California San Diego and as a senior statistician with the Veterans Administration. He is currently working with the Surgical Outcomes and Analysis group at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego. Chris has been an invited speaker at both the Western Users of SAS Software and the SAS Users Group International conferences.
Mark Anawis
Mark Anawis is a Principal Technical Support Scientist at Abbott where he has worked for 28 years in the R&D, Technical Support, and Analytical Quality Assurance areas. He currently is working in the On Market Quality Engineering group doing statistical support. He hold 3 patents and was been awarded the Senior Scientist award in 2006 for his work on the automation of data mining tools. He serves on the board of directors for the Great Lakes JMP Users Group. He has an MA in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and is an ASQ certified Black Belt.
Elizabeth Axelrod
Elizabeth Axelrod is a Lead Programmer Analyst at Abt Associates Inc. in the Health Policy Research Division. She has been using SAS for over 28 years, and has been a SAS fan(atic) for almost that long! She is currently the President of BASUG - the Boston Area SAS Users Group.
Nilesh Bajania
Nilesh Bajania, B.S., works at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Patricia Berglund
Patricia Berglund is a Senior Research Associate in the Survey Methodology Program at the Institute for Social Research. She holds an MBA from Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois and has extensive experience in the use of computing systems for data management and analysis. She is currently working in the mental health field using data from the National Comorbidity Surveys, World Mental Health Surveys, and various other national and international surveys. In addition, she is involved in development, implementation, and teaching of analysis courses and computer training programs at the Survey Research Center/ISR.
LeRoy Bessler
A SAS user since 1978, Dr. LeRoy Bessler has shared his knowledge and experience with other users at conferences in the USA, Canada, England, Ireland, and Germany. Though a SAS generalist, special interests include Software-Intelligent Application Development for applications that are reliable, reusable, extendable, and maintainable, communication-effective visual communication and reporting, web information delivery, highly formatted Excel reporting from SAS, and creation of tools to support a SAS server and SAS users.
Gerry Bonin
Gerry Bonin has used SAS for over 22 years at We Energies, where he is lead SAS programmer for the Performance and Capacity Management (PCM) group. He started using mainframe SAS in the early 1980s, creating a large system of macros for processing SMF/RMF data, summarization, analysis, and reporting. By 2006, Gerry had migrated all We Energies SAS processing from the mainframe and Windows desktops to a single Unix SAS server.
Michael Bramley
Michael first learned SAS in a small one computer village without internet. He found it easier to type after he evolved opposable thumbs. This spurred him on to earn degrees in Math, Medieval History and something called ‘Statistics’ (you may call it worse things). He worked in the pharmaceutical industry as one of those ‘statistic-guys’ until he saw the light and moved to dunnhumbyUSA in 2006. He is rumored to be involved in CinSUG.
David Bruckner
David Bruckner is a Systems Project Leader for Kohler Co. working in Sales Operations for Kitchen and Bath Americas - Sales. He has been using SAS Software since 1995. David has extensive experience with application development and reporting, using ODS, PROC REPORT, and SAS/IntrNet. Most recently, David has been involved with the implementation, configuration, and launching of SAS BI Enterprise Server for his area of responsibility.
Fary Cachelin
Fary Cachelin is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at California State University, Los Angeles. Dr. Cachelin has published numerous scientific articles. Her primary research interests are in clinical psychology, with particular emphasis on eating disorders and developmental psychopathology. Recently, Dr. Cachelin’s lab has been conducting studies examining disordered eating, dieting, and obesity in women and men of various ethnicities, with a specific interest in investigating barriers to treatment seeking and health care utilization in these populations. Her newest project, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, will focus on developing and testing a guided self-help program to treat binge eating in Mexican American women.
Art Carpenter
Art Carpenter’s publications list includes four books, and numerous papers presented at SAS Global Forum, and other user group conferences. Art has been using SAS® since 1977 and is a SAS Certified Advanced Professional Programmer. Through California Occidental Consultants he teaches SAS courses and provides contract SAS programming support nationwide.
John Cerrito
John Cerrito has practiced pharmacy for over 30 years. He currently is a doctor of pharmacy practicing retail and consulting pharmacy. He has considerable expertise in drug interactions and in working with healthcare claims data to investigate health outcomes.
Patricia Cerrito
Patricia Cerrito has a doctorate in mathematics and currently works as a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Louisville. She has worked in the area of health care analytics for over 20 years and has authored a number of books on the topic. She has trained many doctoral and master's students in health care analytics; they are now working in the healthcare industry to examine the relationship between decision-making and results.
Tarun Chandra
Tarun Chandra received his B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1985 and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in 1992 where he was an Abraham Lincoln graduate fellow. From 1992 to 2000 he worked in the Diagnostics Division of Abbott Laboratories (ADD), first as a Senior Scientist, then as Validation Manager, and subsequently as Business Team Leader and Principal Statistician. From 2000 to 2004, as the new product development manager at Biotechplex Corporation, Dr. Chandra spearheaded several NIH SBIR-funded projects involving biomedical applications of chemiluminescence and fluorescence techniques as well as computer hardware, firmware and software interfaces for the development of novel integrated medical systems. In these projects he applied advanced signal processing techniques such as wavelet decomposition, cumulant analysis, chaotic dynamics and joint time-frequency distributions. Since 2004, as Managing Principal of his company, EmpiriQA LLC, he and his team of consultants have successfully completed over 200 projects involving process and test method development and validation, specification setting, mathematical modeling and computer simulation, statistical process control, and practical applications of robust statistical methods for the healthcare industry. Dr. Chandra serves on the industrial advisory board of the Department of Chemical Engineering at UIC, has one U.S. patent and has coauthored over 20 publications.
Jason Chavarry
Jason Chavarry is Senior Analyst – Operations and Analytics, in Talent and Human Capital Services, at Sears Holdings Corporation.
Min Chen
Min Chen is a Biostatistician at the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) of the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW).
Alein Chun
Alein T. Chun, Ph.D., works at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Ben Cochran
After more than 11 years with SAS Institute in the Professional Services (as an Instructor) and Marketing Departments (as Marketing Manager for the SAS/EIS product), Ben Cochran left to start his own consulting and SAS training business in the fall of 1996 – The Bedford Group. As an affiliate member of SAS Institute’s Alliance Partner Program, Ben has been involved in many teaching and consulting projects over the last 10 years. Ben has authored and presented several papers at SUGI, SGF, and regional user groups on a variety of topics since 1988.
David Corliss
David Corliss has been working in SAS since 1994. With a background in statistical astrophysics, he is a senior statistical consultant in the automotive industry and an astronomy instructor at the University of Toledo. He is active in the Michigan and Midwest SAS User Groups and has been a speaker and committee member at local and regional events, serving as co-chair of the Midwest SAS User Group conference in 2000.
Scott Davis
Scott has experience using Base SAS, ODS, macro language, SAS/AF, PROC SQL and SAS/IntrNet. He has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for almost 20 years with the last 3+ years as a consultant. He presented his first two papers last fall at MWSUG 2009 in Cleveland and presented them again at SGF 2010 in Seattle in April.
Lora Delwiche
Lora works as a SAS programmer supporting research projects at the University of California, Davis. Even though Lora has been using SAS software for over 25 years, she still enjoys writing SAS programs and discovering those special functions and options that are perfect for her programs. She is one of the authors of The Little SAS Book and The Little SAS Book for SAS Enterprise Guide.
David Dickey
Dave Dickey received a PhD from Iowa State University in 1976. His work there led to the "Dickey-Fuller test" which appears in most econometrics textbooks and software packages including SAS/ETS. His early papers on the topic have been cited thousands of times in the scientific literature. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and is William Neal Reynolds Professor of Statistics at North Carolina State University. Along with his main appointment in the Statistics Department, he serves on the advisory board and is an instructor for the NCSU Institute for Advanced Analytics, is a member of the Financial Math faculty, and has an "associate" appointment in the NCSU Economics Department. He is a member of the NCSU Academy of Outstanding Teachers and, in recognition of his consulting, a member of the Academy of Outstanding Faculty Engaged in Extension. For SAS, he has been a contract instructor since 1981, is a SAS Press author, and has spoken at many SUGI, SAS Global Forum, and SESUG meetings.
Peter Eberhardt
Peter is a long time SAS consultant, and his company, Fernwood Consulting Group Inc., is a SAS Alliance Partner. In addition to his participation in user group conferences such as the Mid-West SAS User Group, Peter is a regular contributor to local user groups across Canada, in the United States and in the Caribbean.
Matthew Fenchel
Matthew Fenchel is a biostatistician, Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. He enjoys the challenge of efficient programming and has produced macros for power calculations and other applications for internal, division use. Matt provides consulting and research support to the Division of Pulmonary Medicine. Much of his work involves general linear mixed longitudinal models with large data-sets. He also conducts CF outcomes analysis using CCHMC and CFF patient registry data.
Steve Figard
Steve received his bachelor’s degree in neurobiology from Cornell University, a master’s degree in chemistry from Northern Illinois University, and was finally ejected with a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Florida State University in 1984. After a two year post-doc at Los Alamos National Laboratory, he escaped to Abbott Laboratories in Chicagoland, where he’s been hiding ever since, developing automated in vitro diagnostic immunoassays. Knowing enough statistics to be dangerous, Steve persists in trying to share that knowledge with the world at large.
Jennifer First
Jennifer First, Director of Operations, joined Systems Seminar Consultants, Inc. in 2001. She manages SSC’s administrative, sales, and IT staff. She also develops and implements strategic business planning. Jennifer assists clients with project planning, customized training sessions, and realizing the full potential of SAS software. She ensures quality performance and customer satisfaction. Jennifer coordinates Wisconsin SAS User Group Meetings. She is also the publisher of The Missing Semicolon, SSC’s SAS technical newsletter. She has a B.S. in Psychology, with a minor in Women’s Studies.
Steven First
Steven First, President of Systems Seminar Consultants (SSC), has worked with SAS for over 30 years. His SAS experience includes hundreds of manufacturing, retail, government, marketing, and financial applications. Steve has developed SSC into an esteemed provider of SAS solutions. His commitment to quality has resulted in a successful, fast-growing business. Steve founded WISAS and WISUG. He is a regularly invited speaker at user group meetings. Steve has a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse.
Jack Fuller
Jack Fuller is a Senior Application Developer for COMSYS IT Partners who has been working in Information Technology for twenty-one years. For the last fifteen years, he has been programming in SAS with an emphasis in clinical programming and application development.
Yubo Gao
Yubo Gao earned his PhD in Industrial Engineering from Auburn University at Alabama in1998. Now he is working as an Applications Developer at the Department of Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
Gennadiy Gorelik
Gennadiy Gorelik obtained his PhD in Applied Physics from the Belorussian Academy of Sciences, Minsk in 1973. From 1966 to 1992, he was a scientist at the Heat and Mass Transfer Institute of Belorussian Academy of Sciences. From 1995 to 2010, Gennadiy was a statistician with the Abbott Diagnostics Division assisting R&D, manufacturing operations and on-market technical product development teams. Since his retirement from Abbott Laboratories in February 2010, he is an applied statistics consultant for the healthcare industry.
Ajay Gupta
Ajay Gupta is a SAS Certified Advanced Programmer for SAS 9. He currently works as a Sr. IT Professional in MPI Research. He has a master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University and a bachelor’s degree in Instrumentation Engineering from Amravati University, India.
Michael Haslam
Dr. Michael E. Haslam was most recently an Engineering Manager, Member of the Technical Staff and Six Sigma Master Black Belt at National Semiconductor Corporation in Arlington, Texas. Joining National in 1988, Dr. Haslam has held a variety of positions in both R&D and manufacturing. His areas of responsibility have included new process development, quality and yield improvement, process control, process improvement, product improvement, operations management and engineering management. Dr. Haslam has taught extensively in the areas of Engineering Data Analysis, Process Control, Risk Analysis and Six Sigma. Most recently, he has built a wide variety of engineering productivity and data analysis tools using the JMP platform. Dr. Haslam received his BS, M-Eng and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, concentrating in Solid State Physics and Semiconductor Wafer Processing. He holds several patents in the area of Semiconductor Processing. He joined Predictum in 2010 and is currently the VP of Applications Development.
Diane Hatcher
Diane Hatcher has been at SAS since 2001, where she focuses on discussing SAS 9 architecture with customers-- explaining the architecture and how it fits into their infrastructure. In the past, she has been the Product Manager for much of the SAS 9 Business Analytics Framework infrastructure. Prior to SAS, she spent over 15 years providing and consuming business intelligence content and solutions to various enterprises ranging from Fortune 500 companies to internet startups.
Jerry High
The author manages a support team that focuses on the information delivery tools used throughout the company. The author has been at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota for 24 years where he has various roles ranging from an Actuarial Analyst to an IT Principle Architect. Throughout his tenure, he has gained an understanding of what the business needs to support their work and how it can be accomplished through a good support model.
Michelle Hopkins
Michelle Hopkins is a research analyst for Stratis Health. She received her master’s degree in mathematics with a statistics emphasis from the University of West Florida. Her work includes conducting online surveys, statistical analysis, and developing automated reports. She has nearly 15 years of SAS programming experience and is a SAS Certified Base Programmer for SAS 9. She is currently working on certification as an Advanced Programmer for SAS 9.
Joshua Horstman
Josh Horstman has been a SAS user since 1998. In his current role as a SAS Programmer and Data Analyst with First Phase Consulting, Inc., Josh provides SAS programming services for pharmaceutical clients on a variety of clinical trials. Previously, Josh gained extensive SAS experience as a programmer and statistical analyst with Eli Lilly and Company for nine years. Josh has served as MWSUG Webmaster since 2007. In addition, Josh has recently been elected to the executive committee of the Pharmaceutical Industry SAS Users Group (PharmaSUG) and will be co-chairing the PharmaSUG 2012 conference in San Francisco. Josh is based in Indianapolis, Indiana, and holds an M.S. in Statistics from Colorado State University as well as a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
George Hurley
George J. Hurley has been using SAS for 10 years and is Advanced SAS Certified. He holds an M.S. in Applied Statistics from Wright State versity, in Dayton, Ohio; B.A.'s in both Mathematics and History from Thomas More College, in Crestview Hills, KY; and an A.A. in Physics, also from Thomas More. George began his career at The Procter and Gamble Company in Cincinnati, where he spent 7 years as a SAS Programmer and Statistician. He was then at JP Morgan Chase, in Columbus, OH, as a Sr. Marketing Analyst for 3 years. George is currently Manager, Advanced Analytics, at The Hershey Company, in Hershey, PA, where he has been since November 2009. He enjoys both Reese's Pieces and Almond Joy. He has presented at SAS User Group and ASA events, including SAS Global Forum, MWSUG, JSM, and ASA Spring Research Conference. He won the Best Paper Award in Statistics at MWSUG in 2002. George is also a member of MENSA, but has never attended a meeting.
James Jenson
James Jenson graduated with his master’s degree in Applied Economics from St. Cloud State University in Central Minnesota. He has spent 3 years as a Risk Analyst within the Retail Credit Risk Management department at US Bancorp. James accepted a new role as a Treasury Modeler within the Credit Risk Model Management team at US Bancorp early 2010. Throughout his tenure in the banking industry, James has leveraged SAS in conjunction with other software tools to generate reports and summarize financial information. He has attended several SAS user group meetings and presented his paper at the Twin Cities SAS Users Group in the fall of 2009.
Carole Jesse
Carole Jesse has applied Advanced Analytics in a variety of industries since 1988. The applications span High Volume Manufacturing of Consumer Products, Nuclear Energy, Semiconductor Manufacturing/Packaging, Financial Services, and Health Care. Throughout her career, SAS has been her tool of choice in both UNIX and Windows environments. Carole holds a B.S. in Mathematics (University of Wisconsin) and a M.S. in Statistics (Montana State University). She is a SAS Certified Base Programmer for SAS 9.
Misty Johnson
Misty Johnson began using SAS in 1998 during graduate study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Agricultural Engineering. Her professor’s statistician told her “this program can get you a job. SAS is power.” She thought him crazy, but DID fall in love with SAS and DID prove him right. Misty is a Research Analyst with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services since 2003. She uses PC SAS on a daily basis to analyze Medicaid costs and counts.
Matthew Karafa
Dr. Karafa has been a SAS user since 1993. His current appointment is as a Project Scientist in the Quantitative Health Sciences department of the Cleveland Clinic, as well as Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, where he teaches introduction to Clinical Research. In the collaborative center, he uses SAS to perform analyses and helps to maintain QHS's macro library.
Adrian Katschke
Adrian works as the Data analytics specialist for the Defense Finance and Accounting Service in Indianapolis, IN. He has been using SAS for the last 10 years.
Britta KelseyBassett
Britta KelseyBassett is a Marketing Data Analyst at the Schwan Food Company in Marshall, MN. She has been a SAS user for over 10 years. She enjoys helping beginner SAS users as well as writing macros. She has given many presentations on various SAS topics throughout the years including presenting three times at past SAS Global Forums.
Charles Kincaid
Chuck is the Engagement Director for the COMSYS Business Analytics Practice. He has a BS in Computer Science and a master’s degree and PhD work in Statistics. Chuck has been with COMSYS for eleven years; for the last eight years, he has managed an eclectic team of programmers and developers in their three Centers of Excellence. This group has been providing Business Intelligence and Business Analytics in almost every industry since the early 90’s.
Mindy Kiss
Mindy Kiss earned her Bachelor’s degree in Statistics from the University of Michigan. She has been a SAS consultant, Engagement Manager and Business Development Professional, for over 15 years She has worked with several of COMSYS’ Business Analytics Practice clients from a variety of industries including healthcare, pharmaceutical, financial services, insurance and manufacturing to name a few. Besides being an avid golfer, Mindy enjoys visiting Las Vegas and spending time with her family.
Paul Kollner
Paul has been with dunnhumbyUSA for 3.5 years as a Direct Marketing Analyst and has been in market research since 2001 after 11 years as an actuarial analyst. Paul first learned SAS through university courses in the late 1980’s and has been programming in SAS since the early 1990’s. The need to manipulate large data sets and perform unique analyses has driven Paul’s desire to move past SAS basics into more advanced areas like arrays.
Kirk Paul Lafler
Kirk Paul Lafler is consultant and founder of Software Intelligence Corporation and has been programming in SAS since 1979. As a SAS Certified Professional and SAS Institute Alliance Member (1996 – 2002), Kirk provides IT consulting services and training to SAS users around the world. As the author of four books including PROC SQL: Beyond the Basics Using SAS (SAS Institute. 2004), he has written more than four hundred peer-reviewed papers and articles that have appeared in professional journals and SAS User Group proceedings. Kirk has also been an invited speaker and trainer at more than three hundred SAS international, regional, local, and special-interest user group conferences and meetings throughout North America, and is the recipient of 16 “Best” contributed paper awards. His popular SAS Tips column, “Kirk’s Korner of Quick and Simple Tips”, appears regularly in several SAS User Group newsletters and Web sites, and his fun-filled SASword Puzzles are featured in SAScommunity.org and other venues.
Dave LeBlond
Dave LeBlond is currently manager of exploratory statistics in Abbott’s global pharmaceutical R&D where he supports drug discovery, process and analytical methods development, and product life-cycle statistical needs. His 31 years of experience as a statistician and senior scientist included 17 years in diagnostic medical device and 14 years in pharmaceutical research. He has served on the PhRMA CMC statistical expert team and the editorial staff for the Journal of Validation Technology. His educational experience includes Biochemistry (Ph.D.), Dairy Science (M.S.), and Statistics (M.S.).
Matthew Lesko
Matthew currently works as an IT Engineer in MPI Research. He has a master’s degree in Computer Science from Southern Illinois University and a bachelor’s degree in Meteorology from Pennsylvania State University. He has several certifications, including MCP, CBIC (Certified Business Intelligence Consultant), and Comptia Security+.
Wayne Levin
Wayne Levin is President of Predictum Inc. a company specializing in SAS® and JMP® application development in a variety of industries including semiconductor, consumer products, pharmaceuticals and automotive. Wayne was certified as an instructor with SAS Institute for JMP® in 1997 conducting dozens of courses in statistical methods every year since. He graduated from the University of Toronto in Industrial Engineering with a Master's degree in Engineering from the University of Waterloo.
David Li
Dr. David Li is an Engineer and Economist by training. His business analytic background spans across diverse industries including pharmacy benefit management/healthcare, retail, telecommunications, and higher education. Dr. Li is currently employed as the Senior Director of Business Intelligence with Prime Therapeutics, a leading pharmacy benefit management company associated with Blue Cross and Blue Shield organizations. He is currently focused on pharmacy benefit design practice to advance the building and managing of pharmacy benefit plans.
Peigang Li
Peigang Li is a Biostatistician at the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) of the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). Before joining the CIBMTR last year, he was a Lead Programmer Analyst at the Biotechnology and Bioengineering Center of MCW where he started using SAS in 2004 and did extensive statistical analysis mixed-effects models using both PROC MIXED in SAS and lme/nlme library in R.
Nathan Lindquist
Nathan graduated with a computer science degree from Minnesota’s Saint John’s University in 2003. Nathan has worked in credit risk, finance, and marketing at Metris Companies (credit cards), HSBC Card Services, and U.S. Bank. In his current role at U.S. Bank, Nathan provides the primary risk support for a student loan portfolio and reporting support for several unsecured loan portfolios. Nathan learned SAS while in college and uses the language to build and enhance a wide range of financial reports. He firmly believes that good information systems are necessary for making good business decisions. SAS provides the versatile set of tools needed to easily monitor and analyze financial performance.
Dachao Liu
With a master’s degree in statistics, Dachao has worked as a statistical analyst and programmer after graduation. Dachao has been using SAS for more than ten years. Dachao contributed and presented three papers at MWSUG conferences: “How to Use Summary Statistics as Raw Data to Do Basic Statistical Analysis”, ‘‘Fitting Your Data into the FREQ Procedure and More”, and “A Comparison between Correlated ROC Curves Using SAS and DBM MRMC: A Case Study in Image Comparison”.
Ying Liu
Ying Liu is with HSBC Financial in Toronto, Ontario.
Pete Lund
Pete Lund is a SAS Certified Professional™ who has used the SAS System since 1988. He currently works for Looking Glass Analytics in Olympia, WA as Information Systems Manager. Pete has extensive experience with DATA step and SAS macro languages, SQL, SAS/GRAPH and SAS/IntrNet and has presented over 75 papers at local and regional SAS Users Groups as well as at SUGI/SAS Global Forum, where he won the “Best Contributed Paper” Award three times.
Darrell Massengill
Darrell Massengill is a Senior Development Manager in the Data Visualization R&D group and has been a development manager with SAS since 1983. He has a BS from UNC-CH and a master’s degree in Computer Science from NC State University.
Gary McPhail
Dr. Gary McPhail is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati and the Director of Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Outcomes Research at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Dr. McPhail’s research focuses on analysis of clinical outcomes in patients with CF using data in the national Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Patient Registry. The CF Outcomes team at Cincinnati Children’s is researching unique methods of Registry analysis to help advance the field of outcomes research.
David Meek
David Meek is a statistician with the USDA Agricultural Research Service. He is involved with all aspects of research from planning to publishing. He has used SAS throughout most of his over 30 years of public service.
Xiangxiang Meng
Xiangxiang Meng is am a PhD student in Statistics at Department of Mathematical Science, University of Cincinnati. Xiangxiang received a master’s degree in Statistics from University of Cincinnati in 2008 and bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics from South China University of Technology (Guangzhou, China) in 2003. Xiangxiang has 4 years of SAS programming experience, including internships at Proctor & Gamble, Medical Device Consultants Inc., and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
Mark Menzie
Mark Menzie has been employed and using SAS at Assurant Health in Milwaukee for the last 9 years. Duties include data gathering, rate implementation and product implementation. Mark’s SAS projects have included the integration of data from other data sources into a single result set and the consolidation of multiple existing jobs to run as one. Mark is currently pursuing Base SAS 9 certification.
Thomas Miron
Tom Miron is a SAS and systems design consultant and trainer. Tom has over 25 years of SAS experience across many business and industry areas. Tom has presented several Global Forum (SUGI) papers and received a SUGI Best Contributed Paper award. He is the author of two books published by SAS Institute: “SAS Software Solutions: Basic Data Processing” and “The How-To Book for SAS/Graph Software”.
Robert Moore
Robert Moore received his M.S. in Statistics from the University of Minnesota, and is an Associate in the Society of Actuaries. He has over 20 years of experience in the insurance and financial services industry including work as an actuary, predictive modeler and statistical analyst. He is also a SAS Certified Advanced Programmer and SAS Certified Predictive Modeler Using SAS Enterprise Miner.
Ruth Striegel-Moore
Ruth Striegel-Moore is Professor of Psychology and Walter A. Crowell University Professor of the Social Sciences at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. Dr. Striegel-Moore’s research interests include the etiology and treatment of eating disorders, gender and psychopathology. She has over 100 scientific research publications. As a member of the Eating Disorder Workgroup charged with reviewing how eating disorders are classified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, Dr. Striegel-Moore’s current research examines the empirical classification of eating disorders. Her current research also looks at developing easily effective treatments for binge eating that are easily disseminable and cost-effective both from the personal perspective and the societal perspective.
Dilip Movva
Dilip Movva is working as a Systems Project Leader at Kohler Co in Wisconsin from September, 2004. Prior to that he served as a Programmer Analyst at American Express in Phoenix, Arizona. He holds a Bachelor's & Master's Degree in Computer Science from Nagarjuna University in India. He is also a SAS Certified Professional.
Melodi Muehlbauer
Melodi Muehlbauer is currently a Sr. Business Analyst for UnitedHealthcare in Milwaukee WI, where she has been employed for 24 years in a variety of IT positions. She has been a SAS user for 10 years.
Roger Muller
Roger Muller is a SAS Programmer and Data Analyst with First Phase Consulting, Inc. Roger provides SAS programming services for pharmaceutical clients on a variety of clinical trials. Roger started using SAS while pursuing his Ph.D. at Iowa State University and continued using it while working at the Elanco division of Eli Lilly and Company over a 30-year career. He worked with data from a variety of clinical trials ranging from early research to post-marketing. Roger also headed the effort to publish this information so it could be used by customers of the company's animal health products. He authored twenty-three books as well as numerous videos, multimedia presentations, etc. He has made a number of SUGI presentations. Roger is based in the Indianapolis, Indiana area.
Matthew Nizol
Matthew Nizol is a software developer from Southeast Michigan. He has worked for EDS / Hewlett-Packard since 2002 and has been a SAS user since 2003. Matthew develops custom warranty analysis reporting software in SAS for General Motors, supporting GM’s Global Quality and North American Finance departments. Matthew holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Michigan -- Dearborn, where he graduated in 2003 with high distinction.
Joe Novotny
Joe began programming SAS during graduate school at Penn State in 1996. After receiving his master’s degree in Human Development, he switched industries to pharmaceutical research where he used SAS for 8 years analyzing phase II and III clinical trials. In 2007, Joe switched industries again and began working for dunnhumbyUSA as a Direct Marketing Analyst. Joe has presented at MWSUG and NESUG and is currently involved with the Cincinnati SAS Users Group (CinSUG) and MWSUG.
Timothy O'Brien
Dr. Timothy E. O’Brien is a tenured professor with the graduate faculty in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Loyola University of Chicago, where he teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in statistics – courses ranging from statistical concepts and methods for non-scientists to likelihood and Bayesian methods and statistical theory for advanced students. His research focuses on linear and nonlinear modeling, statistical genetics and bioinformatics, survival analysis, bioassay and drug synergy, and experimental design.
Nancy Obuchowski
Dr. Nancy Obuchowski works on the assessment of new and mature diagnostic and screening tests and associated visual aids (e.g. computer-aided detection devices). Her focus is on tests that require trained observers to interpret the test results. She has published papers on novel multi-reader study designs, efficient endpoints for screening tests, bias in diagnostic and screening test studies, techniques for sample size calculation, and methods for comparing the diagnostic accuracy of tests and for testing diagnostic equivalence. Most of Dr. Obuchowski’s collaborations are with faculty from the Imaging Institute, where she holds a joint appointment.
Alexander Pakalniskis
Alexander Pakalniskis, M.S., works at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Chevell Parker
Chevell Parker is a consultant in the Base/Graph group within the Technical Support Division. His primary support areas include the Output Delivery System and the SAS XML Libname Engine. He joined SAS Institute in 1993 and has been a SAS user for over 17 years.
DJ Penix
D.J. Penix is the President of Pinnacle Solutions, Inc., an Indianapolis-based Business Intelligence Solutions provider and SAS Value-Added Reseller. D.J. has been building SAS based solutions for over 16 years in various industries including pharmaceutical & life sciences, insurance, hospitality & entertainment, manufacturing, financial, retail, education, and government. He graduated from Kalamazoo College with a B.S. in both Mathematics and Computer Science and serves on the executive board of the MidWest SAS Users Group.
Stacey D. Phillips
Stacey Phillips started her career in SAS as a research assistant studying adolescent health and child welfare issues with the Urban Institute in Washington, DC. After moving to California she took several jobs as a statistical programmer in the biotech/pharmaceutical industry and ultimately landed at i3 Statprobe where she's been for more than 8 years. Stacey is a proud graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she earned a bachelor's degree in Research Sociology and Business.
Steve Popernack
Steve Popernack has worked in SAS since 1990, working in the manufacturing and financial services industries. He currently analyzes business credit scores for KeyBank, a position he has held for three years. Steve served as last year's MWSUG publications coordinator, and is active in local and state-wide SAS users groups and conferences. Steve also publishes music for steel drum bands, and sings in a barbershop chorus in northeast Ohio.
Rex Pruitt
Rex Pruitt is Manager of the Profitability & Risk Department in the MIS Division. Rex has been employed by PREMIER Bankcard LLC since 2005. He also serves in other ancillary leadership roles including, but not limited to: President and CEO of CAPs - Customer Analytic Professionals LLC; Vice-Chair of the Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce Ambassador Executive Committee; Founder and President of South Dakota SAS® Users Group; Board of Directors Secretary for Midwest SAS® Users Group (MWSUG); and Regional Conference Sponsorship Coordinator of MWSUG. At PREMIER Bankcard, he is primarily responsible for supporting the Marketing Division as well as being responsible for portfolio data mining and predictive modeling. Rex has a B.S. degree in marketing management from Bellevue University, NE. The majority of his career has been focused on the study of corporate data and how it can be turned into a revenue source. Project management and human resource management skills have been critical to his successful career. Rex has been in the analytics profession since 1986 and is extremely proficient with a multiplicity of software solutions. He has spent almost three decades supporting the financial services and insurance industries. While he comes from a humble Midwestern farm background, he has had the opportunity to acquire international business acumen by traveling the world, performing accounting audits and recommending business process improvements using his analytic talents.
Pedro Ramos
Pedro Ramos has a BS in Business Administration and an MS in Mathematics. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Applied and Industrial Mathematics and an MS in Biostatistics at the University of Louisville. He was a presenter at MWSUG 2008 and MWSUG 2009.
Alix Riley
Alix Riley is the Assistant Director of the Office of Institutional Research & Assessment at Marquette University. She has been using SAS software for seven years, with prior professional experience at Assurant Health and the United States Department of Agriculture. She has used Base SAS, SAS/STAT, SAS/GRAPH, and SAS/AF. When she's not submitting SAS jobs, Alix is spending time with her family.
Robert Rodriguez
Bob joined SAS in 1983 and is currently a senior director in the Advanced Analytics Division with responsibility for the development of statistical software, including SAS/STAT and SAS/QC. He received his Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of North Carolina in 1977, and was a staff research scientist at General Motors Research Laboratories from 1977 until 1983.
Kevin Russell
Kevin Russell is employed by SAS Technical Support and has used SAS since 1994. His main area of expertise is the SAS macro language. For many years, along with the macro language, he supported the Base SAS procedures. He currently supports the DATA step language in addition to the macro language.
Christopher Schacherer
Chris Schacherer received his Ph.D. in Human Factors & Ergonomics from Rice University and has developed data management, analytic, and business intelligence solutions for the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, SBC Communications, the University of Wisconsin Hospital & Clinics, and Mayo Clinic. He has been a SAS user for nearly 20 years, and enjoys mentoring analysts who are new to the SAS environment.
Carl Schleyer
Carl Schleyer is Director of Operations and Analytics, in Talent and Human Capital Services, at Sears Holdings Corporation.
Sandra Schlotzhauer
Sandra Schlotzhauer provides consulting and training services, focusing on the pharmaceutical industry. She started Schlotzhauer Consulting LLC after fifteen years of experience in the software, pharmaceutical, and aerospace industries. Sandra received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Statistics from the University of Florida, where she learned the value of combining statistics and software. Her consulting projects share a common theme of translating technical concepts to business deliverables. Sandra draws on her extensive experience in teaching basic statistics to non-statisticians, with a focus on using statistical methods and software as tools to make practical decisions based on data. Sandra is the author of Elementary Statistics using JMP® and Elementary Statistics using SAS®. She has used SAS software since 1979, and JMP software since 1995. She currently uses JMP software for many projects, including developing custom JMP courses using client data. She currently uses SAS software in projects to validate clinical trial analyses.
Mira Shapiro
Mira Shapiro has been a SAS user since 1979 and is currently serving as SAS User Liaison for DC-SUG, a Washington-DC SAS Users Group. She has used SAS throughout her career as a Capacity Planner, Consultant and Biostatistician. She holds a BA in Statistics / Computer Science and an MS in Public Health / Biostatistics and works on analytics and pre-sales projects across multiple industries.
Charles Edwin Shipp
Charles Edwin Shipp is a programmer, consultant and author, and has been using SAS and JMP software since 1980. He is credited in the original JMP manual for his role in the early days. He has written more than eighty papers, been an invited speaker at more than fifty international, regional, local, and special-interest SAS and JMP events, and is the recipient of 10 “Best” contributed paper awards. Charlie is the co-author of three books including the ever-popular Books by Users (BBU) book, Quick Results with SAS/GRAPH Software. Currently, Charlie is involved as an eBook author, a sasCommunity.org Advisory Board member, and a consultant for Trivani Foundation International with his lovely and brilliant wife, Lynnette.
Susan Slaughter
Susan Slaughter is best known as one of the authors of The Little SAS Book and The Little SAS Book for SAS Enterprise Guide, both published by SAS Institute. Susan discovered SAS software in graduate school at North Carolina State over 25 years ago. Since then she has used SAS in a variety of business and academic settings. She has presented over 60 papers at local, regional, and national SAS user group conferences, and currently works as a consultant through her company, Avocet Solutions.
Irvin Snider
Irvin Snider is a SAS Certified Advanced Programmer. He is employed by Assurant Health as a Senior Actuarial Analyst and has been with Assurant for 24 years. He holds several professional insurance designations including Chartered Financial Consultant, Chartered Life Underwriter, Registered Employee Benefit Consultant and Registered Health Underwriter. He has a bachelor’s degree in History and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Carroll College. He has a Graduate Certificate in Applied Statistics from the Pennsylvania State University. This will be his first time presenting at a SAS users group.
Timothy Steines
Tim Steines is a graduate of the MIS program at Iowa State University, and has developed numerous reporting and business intelligence solutions in the manufacturing and healthcare fields. He has been a SAS user for nearly three years and is expert at applying SAS technologies to data management process controls.
Maura Stokes
Maura Stokes is an R & D Director in the Statistical Applications Department. She is the development product manager for SAS/STAT software. She is the co-author of the SAS Press book Categorical Data Analysis Using the SAS System. Maura received her DrPH from the University of North Carolina in 1986 and has been working at SAS since 1985.
Mike Tangedal
Mike Tangedal is a SAS programmer from Minneapolis Minnesota with more than 20 years experience as a professional SAS programmer. Like so many others, his first experience with SAS was in college when the entire documentation was but a book or two. As Mike gained professional experience, the size of the datasets increased as did his expertise. Mike has worked with SAS using data from the government, pharmaceutical research, airline data, health care claims data, insurance data, database marketing data, and financial data. His expertise in SAS is most focused on building the most efficient solutions possible along with an emphasis on quality assurance. Mike has presented many papers on this as well as the SAS macro language on a local, regional, and national level.
Paulo Tanimoto
Paulo Tanimoto is a programming consultant working with KEMA in Madison, Wisconsin. One of his main activities is to develop statistical models for analyzing energy efficiency data. Mr. Tanimoto received an M.S. degree from the University of Arizona for his thesis on electrical load forecasting. A programmer at heart, he enjoys contributing to open source projects whenever possible.
James Tetterton
James Tetterton joined SAS in 2000 and is a senior software developer in SAS R&D. He has a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from North Carolina State University. He works with reporting technologies and on the interoperability between the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office, SAS Enterprise Guide, SAS Web Report Studio, and SAS BI Dashboard. Recently, the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office was added to Microsoft Outlook. James’ work on this project enables users to view SAS BI Dashboards content in Microsoft Outlook.
Douglas Thompson
Doug Thompson is a Senior Data Modeler with Assurant Health in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Dr. Thompson has 11 years of experience using SAS/BASE, STAT, ETS and EM. He has used SAS for statistical analyses in more than 30 peer-reviewed publications in medicine, public health, nutrition and the social sciences. His experience includes work in clinical trials and health surveys; the telecommunications, insurance and food industries; and consulting for the Federal and state government clients.
David Thul
Dave has worked as a SAS programmer for the past 18 years. He has developed and reviewed hundreds of programs in many industries including finance, banking, mail order, healthcare and survey processing. He has spent the past 10 years in the healthcare industry on the payer side. He has worked on all of the major server platforms and several data platforms including DB2, Oracle, SQL Server, MS Office and server specific data files. He particularly enjoys the challenge of technology and process improvement within the departments for which he has worked.
Valentin Todorov
Valentin Todorov is a Senior Statistician at Assurant Specialty Property, an insurance company. Valentin has been working at Assurant following his graduation with an MS in Economics from Georgia Institute of Technology in December 2007. He began using SAS while pursuing his degree and has been expanding his knowledge in the areas of predictive modeling and times series analysis. In his work, Valentin is using SAS/BASE, STAT and ETS.
Sy Truong
Sy Truong is the cofounder and president of MXI (Meta-Xceed, Inc.) which provides software solutions in CDISC data standards, SAS validation, electronic submission, data analysis and reporting. Sy is a frequent contributor and presenter at PharmaSUG, WUSS, and SAS Global Forum. He is currently writing a book entitled Analyzing Clinical Data.
Rhonda VanDyke
Rhonda VanDyke is an assistant professor with the Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati. Rhonda has a joint appointment in the Division of Pulmonary Medicine, overseeing its Biostatistics Core. This core provides statistical consulting support and grant resources for statistical methods research. She collaborates with researchers in Radiology, Neurology, Neonatology and Pulmonary Biology, conducting imaging data analysis, outcomes research, and functional data analysis.
Brian Varney
Brian Varney has been a SAS consultant, trainer, and technical manager for over 19 years with the COMSYS Business Analytics Practice, a SAS Alliance Gold Member. Located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, he keeps busy by providing SAS training, consulting support and business development (plus a few hours a week for soccer). He has worked mostly in the pharmaceutical industry but also has worked in industries such as medical device, manufacturing, insurance, entertainment and telecommunications.
Mary Beth Waldo
Mary Beth Waldo is a statistician in the Global Quality Data department of General Motors in Southeast Michigan. She has worked for GM since 1978 and has been a SAS user since that time. Mary Beth supports the development of GM’s global quality data analysis tools, primarily in the warranty area. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics (1978) from Alma College and a Master of Science degree in Applied Statistics (1983) from Oakland University.
Lisa Walter
Lisa Walter is a Sr. Analyst in the Pricing Analytics department for Cardinal Health. Her primary role involves application development using SAS and .NET. She joined Cardinal Health from an information systems consulting firm where she focused primarily on web development and reporting services. Ms. Walter graduated from Bowling Green State University with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.
Peixin Wang
Peixin Wang, M.S., MPA, works at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Xiao Wang
A native of China, Xiao Wang earned her master's degree in economics from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and a bachelor's degree in finance at Qingdao University. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Industrial and Applied Mathematics with an emphasis in data mining at the University of Louisville. Her PhD research focuses on improving health care outcomes and reducing health care costs using SAS. She has finished six projects with a concentration on the outcomes and costs of diabetes patients in the Medicare population. Xiao was awarded a SAS Student Ambassadorship for SAS Global Forum 2009 and 2010, and she also presented at the MWSUG 2009 conference.
Donalee Wanna
Donalee Wanna has been a SAS user since 1983. She is Section Chair for Resources and Support for SAS Users for the 2010 MidWest SAS User Group Conference. Donalee has served in many roles within user groups. She was the founder and current Board Member Emeritus of MWSUG, involved in the TCASUG, the U.S. Bank SAS User Group, and served with several other user groups through the years. Donalee works at U.S. Bank as the SAS Administrator for Retail Credit Risk Management. As such she supports users within a growing SAS environment.
John Wass
The author has formal training in life sciences, statistics, and chemistry, as well as experience in physics and engineering (obviously a frequently out-of-work scholar!). He spent 16 years at Abbott laboratories in medical diagnostics and pharmaceuticals, and is presently a statistical consultant based in Lake Forest, Illinois. Pertinent experience includes forming two JMP users groups and serving as a Contributing Editor for Scientific Computing.
Richann Watson
Richann Watson has been using SAS for almost 15 years. She is currently employed at i3 Statprobe where she is a Principal Statistical Programmer and has worked in clinical research for 12 years.
Jon Weisz
Jon directs marketing, strategy and product planning for JMP software, the desktop data visualization and statistical analysis product from SAS. Before assuming his current role, Jon worked in management of software development, marketing and sales support for SAS.
Kelley Weston
Kelley has over 18 years experience with SAS programming. Kelley has been a programmer with a major telecommunications company and a SAS instructor teaching SAS classes nationwide, as well as teaching hands-on workshops at regional SAS conferences and PharmaSUG. His programming experience also includes clinical trials with a major pharmaceutical company and an international CRO. He is an active member of KCASUG (Kansas City Area SAS Users Group), including stints as Webmaster (2006 & 2007) and Chairman (since 2008).
Brent Westra
Brent Westra is a graduate of the UW Eau Claire Business School and works as a Healthcare Analyst at Mayo Clinic Health Solutions—a third party administrator of healthcare claims. He has been instrumental in integrating SAS as a data management tool at MCHS, where he has automated a number of reports that have been constructed manually in the past. In addition, Brent's SAS interests are in developing extract, transform, and load (ETL) programs and automated reports and graphs using ODS.
Craig Wildeman
Craig Wildeman is a senior systems project leader in the Quality Department of the Cast Iron Division of Kohler Company. As the IT leader for the division, Wildeman is responsible for designing, implementing and maintaining its information systems. In addition, Craig supports SAS software, SAS server, and SAS users. He has been using SAS software for 22 years and has experience using many SAS products. Craig Wildeman has been involved with various SAS user groups throughout his career.
Michael Wilson
Michael Wilson studied Biostatistics at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, where he received his master’s degree. He has been a SAS user and served as a statistical consultant to help large pharmaceutical and medical device corporations solve research problems for 22 years. He is an adjunct faculty member at Indiana University School of Medicine in the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, where he enjoys helping students, faculty and staff learn and use statistics, often with the help of SAS. Michael is a PADI-certified, Rescue SCUBA diver and lives in Indianapolis.
Terry Wilson
Terry Wilson is Oscar Krisen Buros Professor of Clinical Psychology at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. Dr. Wilson, who joined the faculty at Rutgers in 1971, has co-authored or edited several books, published numerous scientific articles, and is currently the editor of Behaviour Research and Therapy. He is a former President of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (1980-81) and twice a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, California (1976-77; 1990-1991). Dr. Wilson’s research has focused on the application of social learning theory to the analysis and treatment of clinical problems. A particular interest has been clinical research on the evaluation of behavioral and cognitive therapies, and analysis of psychological mechanisms of change.
James Woods
Jim Woods is a long-time SAS user and a short-time JMP user, with an MBA degree from Wayne State University and a BS degree from University of Maryland College. His programmer/analyst experiences have included assignments at Ford Motor Company, Daimler-Chrysler Corporation, General Motors Corporation, and much more.
Philip Wright
Phil has been using SAS for almost 20 years, specializing in the conversion of legacy data files, data management, reporting, PROC SQL, ODS, and macro programming. He is moderately active with the Michigan SAS User’s Group (MISUG) and has made three presentations there over the last five years, two presentations at MidWest SAS User’s Group XX, and two presentations at SAS Global Forum 2010.
John Xu
John Xu is the Director of Consulting for 1ST Consulting LLC, a West Des Moines based consulting company specializing in SAS related services. He has over 20 years of SAS experience in programming and statistics. John served on the MidWest SAS Users Group Board of Directors for 10 years. He is currently coordinating the activities of the Iowa SAS Users Group.
Cynthia Zender
Cynthia Zender has been with SAS since 1996 as an instructor and course developer. She currently serves as the Curriculum Manager for the Report Writing and Output Delivery System curriculum. She has over 25 years' experience programming and reporting with SAS in a number of different industries such as education, public utility, telecom, litigation support, and research support (clinical studies and survey analysis). She has most recently finished the book “Output Delivery System: The Basics and Beyond”, co-authored with Lauren Haworth and Michele Burlew.
Xiaochun Zhu
Xiaochun Zhu is a biostatistician at the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant research (CIBMTR) of the Medical College of Wisconsin. Before joining the CIBMTR, he studied at the University of Minnesota and got a Master of Science degree in Biostatistics in 2009.