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Joint Meeting with the Massachusetts
Licensed Site Professional Association ("LSPA")
Using Statistics to Guide Measurement and Decision
Making at 21E Sites
Louise Ryan, Ph.D., Professor of Biostatistics, Harvard School
of Public Health
Overheads/Handouts: Click
Here
Summary: The Massachusetts Contingency Plan (MCP) outlines a number
of key issues to be addressed when making risk-based cleanup decisions
at hazardous waste sites. This talk will provide a statistician's perspective
on how to decide the number and location of samples to be taken at a site,
so as to ensure adequate information for reliably quantifying background
levels and estimating average site exposure point concentrations. The
presentation will assume that the people in attendance have little in
the way of formal statistical training and will provide an overview of
relevant topics such as statistical sampling variability, power, and optimal
design.
Biography: Louise M. Ryan received her Ph.D. in statistics from
Harvard University in 1983. She then joined the Biostatistics Department
at the Harvard School of Public Health where she is now a Professor. She
has a joint appointment with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Ryan
works on statistical methods related to environmental risk assessment
for cancer, developmental and reproductive toxicity, and other non-cancer
endpoints such as respiratory disease. She also works on epidemiological
methods for studying the relationship between environmental exposures
and cancer, reproductive-system illnesses, and pulmonary disease.
Dr Ryan works to foster diversity within the field of public health.
She has a number of grants that support training opportunities for underrepresented
minority groups, including summer programs that provide an opportunity
for minority students to learn about public health research.
Dr Ryan is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and the
Institute of Mathematical Statistics. She has served in a variety of professional
capacities, including co-editor of Biometrics and president of the eastern
North American region of the International Biometric Society. She has
also been a member of advisory boards and committees for many federal
agencies, including the National Academy of Sciences, the Environmental
Protection Agency, and the National Toxicology Program.
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