Caitlin Ward

Caitlin Ward

Assistant Professor

University of Minnesota

About

Welcome! I am an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Division of Biostatistics and Health Data Science. My methodological research focuses on the development of Bayesian models in settings with complex or correlated data, such as infectious disease modeling, spatio-temporal disease mapping, and the analysis of multiplex imaging data. I recently completed a CANSSI distinguished postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Calgary studying behavioral change in infectious disease systems under the supervision of Dr. Rob Deardon and Dr. Alexandra Schmidt. I received my PhD in Biostatistics from the University of Iowa in May 2021, working with Dr. Grant Brown and Dr. Jacob Oleson. In my thesis I developed novel Bayesian methods for infectious disease modeling at both the individual and population-level.

One of my favorite parts of being a biostatistician is the ability to collaborate with researchers across many disciples. While at the University of Iowa, I worked in the Biostatistics Consulting Center for four years, and was privileged to collaborate with researchers in nursing, radiology, and communication sciences, among others. Recently, much of my collaborative efforts have focused on analyzing the effects of nurse elderspeak on resistiveness to care in persons living with dementia, in efforts to improve person-centered dementia care. Some of my other collaborations have used machine learning methods and radiomics data for tumor classification. I have also worked on projects using longitudinal methods, survival and network analysis, as well as more traditional regression modeling.

In my free time, I enjoy spending time with family, baking, and all things volleyball related.

Download my CV.

Interests
  • Bayesian statistics
  • Infectious disease modeling
  • Multiplex imaging analysis
  • Statistical Computation
  • Spatio-temporal modeling
Education
  • PhD in Biostatistics, 2021

    University of Iowa

  • MS in Biostatistics, 2018

    University of Iowa

  • BS in Statistics, 2016

    Iowa State University

Projects

An Intuitive, Interactive, Introduction to Biostatistics

An Intuitive, Interactive, Introduction to Biostatistics

Open Educational Resource for introductory biostatistics.

BayesSEIR

BayesSEIR

An R package to implement Bayesian SEIR models.