Vernon M. Chinchilli, distinguished professor of health evaluation sciences, Penn State College of Medicine, has been named chair of the Department of Health Evaluation Sciences.
Chinchilli, a professor in health evaluation services for more than 12 years, served as vice chair of the department from 1997 to 2002, and has served as interim chair of the department since 2003. As interim chair, he continued efforts to expand the department, growing the department's new Health Services Research group, which focuses on health economics and outcomes-based research.
Chinchilli has been principal investigator for the Data Coordinating Centers of both the Asthma Clinical Research Network since its inception in 1993, and the Childhood Asthma Research and Education Network since its inception in 1999. The research networks, funded by the National Institutes of Health, conduct multi-center clinical trials in adult asthma and pediatric asthma, respectively.
Chinchilli led the effort to establish a Bioinformatics Consulting Center in collaboration with Penn State University Park, which opened in 2003. The cross-campus center, initiated under a grant from the Tobacco Settlement Funds, is a resource for researchers who use gene chips and other bioinformatics tools in their investigations. The center provides expertise in study design, data management and statistical analysis to ensure studies result in information that will generate valid conclusions.Â
Chinchilli has contributed extensively to biostatistical and biomedical research with more than 140 publications. He has developed biostatistical methodology appropriate for the analysis of biomedical research data from multi-center trials and was appointed a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1997 for his contributions to biostatistics.
Before joining the College of Medicine, Chinchilli served 11 years in the Department of Biostatistics at the Medical College of Virginia of Virginia Commonwealth University.
Chinchilli is a 1974 graduate of the Penn State. He earned his doctorate in statistics in 1979 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C.. He then served two years as a post-doctoral fellow in mathematical statistics at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.