April 12, 2010

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The University of Alabama System Board of Trustees appointed Hemant Kumar Tiwari, M.S., Ph.D., to the William "Student" Sealy Gosset Endowed Professorship in Biostatistics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) at its April 8 meeting.

Tiwari's research is focused on quantitative methods and analyses of complex health disorders, and he has developed analysis methods to explore the genetics of complex disease traits. His research interests include genetic-linkage and genome-wide association studies, epigenetics, pharmacogenetics and bioinformatics. He researches gene mapping for cardiovascular diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and other disorders.

Tiwari received his doctorate in mathematics from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He joined UAB in 2002 and became an associate professor in 2006. He received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Mentorship in 2010.

The endowed professorship in the Department of Biostatistics is made possible in part by a gift from Pfizer, Inc. It honors the contributions by faculty in the UAB School of Public Health in developing improved statistical methods in leading-edge research projects for public health, medicine, nutrition and many other fields. The endowed professorship is named for William Sealy Gosset, a renowned 20th Century British statistician.

About the UAB School of Public Health
The UAB School of Public Health is a community of scholars and professionals working and teaching in varied arenas of public health with the goal of fostering research and best practices crucial to the health of the United States and its peoples. The school offers more than 20 areas of study and manages dozens of research and community-service centers.