Speaker: Kung-Yee Liang (PhD 1982 Biostatistics), Distinguished Chair Professor and Senior Advisor for Office of the President, Feng Chia University; former president, National Health Research Institutes of Taiwan

Presentation: From Biostatistician to Administrator: A Personal Journey

Abstract: In this talk, I intend to share with the audience my own journey from being a biostatistician in the USA to leading a university and a health research institute in Taiwan.

I will start with my own exposure to biostatistics at the University of South Carolina, followed by PhD training in biostatistics at the University of Washington and a research career in biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). Three essential periods at JHU led to the ultimate change of my career pathway. With that, I will examine the challenges being faced for such a switch and how to cope with them. This will be followed by the sharing of some of my initiatives carried out at National Yang-Ming University and National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan. Perhaps to no one’s surprise, when looking back, there are close connections between the two careers I have engaged in the past forty some years.