Rebecca North

Rebecca North, PhD

Dr. North is a collaborative biostatistician who lets clinical application drive methodological innovation. This has been true since graduate school at NC State University, where her dissertation focused on variable selection methods for functional data for the purpose of identifying a sparse set of electromyogram signals that would accurately predict the velocity of a prosthetic arm. Also while in graduate school, Dr. North was supported by a T32 Traineeship, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Integrated Biostatistical Training Program for Cardiovascular Disease Research, through which she gained clinical research experience at the Duke Clinical Research Institute with particular focus on atrial fibrillation research.

Since joining the Duke Aging Center, Dr. North has gained statistical experience in latent class analysis, mediation analysis, and meta-analysis, to add to her knowledge of functional data analysis, variable selection techniques, random forests and decision trees, survival analysis, longitudinal data analysis, and other classical frequentist statistical methods. Her clinical areas of interest include circadian rhythm research, cardiovascular research (particularly atrial fibrillation), and Veteran health.