Rebecca A Betensky

Chair of the Department of Biostatistics

Professor of Biostatistics

Professional overview

Prior to NYU, Dr. Betensky was Professor of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She was director of the Harvard Catalyst (Clinical and Translational Science Award) Biostatistics Program; director of the Data and Statistics Core for the Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center; and director of the Biostatistics Neurology Core at Massachusetts General Hospital. Previously, she was the Biostatistics Program Leader for the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center.

Dr. Betensky’s research focuses on methods for the analysis of censored and truncated outcomes and covariates, which frequently arise from the subsampling of cohort studies. She has a long-time interest in clinical trials, and has written on the evaluation of biomarkers and the use and interpretation of p-values. She has collaborated extensively in studies in neurologic diseases, and serves as statistical editor for Annals of Neurology.

Dr. Betensky was awarded, and directed for 15 years, an NIH T32 training program in neurostatistics and neuroepidemiology for pre- and post-doctoral students in biostatistics and epidemiology and for clinician-scientists. She previously directed Harvard’s Biostatistics programs to promote and support diversity at all levels in the field of quantitative public health. She was also a member of the BMRD Study Section for review of NIH statistical methodology grants; on committees for the Institute of Medicine; and a co-chair of the technical advisory committee for the scientific registry of transplant recipients.

Dr. Betensky an elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association and of the International Statistical Institute, and is a past recipient of the Spiegelman Award from the American Public Health Association. She currently serves as a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for Clinical Science and Epidemiology at the National Cancer Institute.

Education

AB, Mathematics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

PhD, Statistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Areas of research and study

Biology

Biostatistics

Neuroepidemiology

Neurology

Neurostatistics

Translational science

Publications

Publications

Pseudo-observations for bivariate survival data

The association between measures of sleepiness and subjective cognitive decline symptoms in a diverse population of cognitively normal older adults

Antidepressant exposure and long-term dementia risk in a nationwide retrospective study on US veterans with midlife major depressive disorder

Association of Social Determinants of Health With Brain MRI Outcomes in Individuals With Pediatric Onset Multiple Sclerosis

Autoimmune, Autoinflammatory Disease and Cutaneous Malignancy Associations with Hidradenitis Suppurativa: A Cross-Sectional Study

Comparison of comorbidities and adverse events in dermatology and rheumatology patients prescribed tofacitinib: A retrospective analysis

Diffusion imaging markers of accelerated aging of the lower cingulum in subjective cognitive decline

Early Detection of Amyloid-Related Changes in Memory among Cognitively Unimpaired Older Adults with Daily Digital Testing

KMstability: R tools to report the stability and precision of Kaplan–Meier estimates as well as measures of follow-up in time-to-event studies

Pathways to personalized medicine—Embracing heterogeneity for progress in clinical therapeutics research in Alzheimer's disease

Phenoconversion in pure autonomic failure: a multicentre prospective longitudinal cohort study

Predictors for the use of systemic therapy in stage IB Mycosis fungoides

The neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio associates with markers of Alzheimer’s disease pathology in cognitively unimpaired elderly people

Trajectories of Inflammatory Markers and Post-COVID-19 Cognitive Symptoms: A Secondary Analysis of the CONTAIN COVID-19 Randomized Trial

Capturing Learning Curves With the Multiday Boston Remote Assessment of Neurocognitive Health (BRANCH): Feasibility, Reliability, and Validity

Genomic and Transcriptomic Analyses of NF1-Mutant Melanoma Identify Potential Targeted Approach for Treatment

Internet usage and the prospective risk of dementia: A population-based cohort study

Neuropathology-Independent Association between APOE Genotype and Cognitive Decline Rate in the Normal Aging-Early Alzheimer Continuum

Nonparametric and semiparametric estimation with sequentially truncated survival data

Nonparametric bounds for the survivor function under general dependent truncation

Simulation of New York City's Ventilator Allocation Guideline during the Spring 2020 COVID-19 Surge

APOE ε4 and late-life cognition: mediation by structural brain imaging markers

Association between lower body temperature and increased tau pathology in cognitively normal older adults

Causal inference in medical records and complementary systems pharmacology for metformin drug repurposing towards dementia

Comparison of serum neurodegenerative biomarkers among hospitalized COVID-19 patients versus non-COVID subjects with normal cognition, mild cognitive impairment, or Alzheimer's dementia