Dr. Smith is an executive director and global group head in biostatistical sciences supporting the Novartis Institute of BioMedical Research. Before joining Novartis in 2014, Dr. Smith worked at Amgen Inc. (2005-2014), Eli Lilly and Company (1996-2005), and University of Louisville Kidney Disease Program (1994-1996). Prior to his professional career, he received a Ph.D. in statistics from University of Kentucky. All positions in his career in the pharmaceutical industry have supported early clinical development. Dr. Smith plays an active role in promoting quantitative sciences in drug development. He is currently a member of the American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, the International Society of Pharmacometrics, and the American Statistical Association. Dr. Smith is the current Chief Statistical Advisor of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, an Associate Editor of Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research, and a faculty member of the American Course on Drug and Regulatory Science.
Dr. Alfredo Morales works in understanding the complex behavior of social systems by analyzing big data with artificial intelligence algorithms, networks and complexity science. He explains large scale, societal behaviors, such as social segregation and polarization, by retrieving unstructured patterns of information from large datasets resulting from human activity on Internet, mobile phones and shopping data. He works closely with world class researchers from academia and industry, including institutions like MIT, Harvard and the UN. He is a member of the New England Complex Science Institute (NECSI). In 2017 Dr. Morales was included in the list of Latinos of the Future by the journal El Planeta and in 2018 – in the list of 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Technology Review.
Dr. Frank Hu’s research has focused on diet/lifestyle, metabolic, and genetic determinants of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease (CVD). His major research interests include major topics in epidemiology and prevention of cardio-metabolic diseases through diet and lifestyle. His group has conducted detailed analyses of many dietary and lifestyle factors and risk of diabetes and CVD, and the findings have contributed to current public health recommendations and policies for prevention of chronic diseases. Dr. Hu’s group has also identified novel biomarkers and gene-environment interactions in relation to risk of obesity and diabetes by integrating cutting-edge omics technologies into epidemiological studies and pioneering the Systems Epidemiology approach.
