Krafty chairs biostatistics and bioinformatics

Dr. Robert T. Krafty has joined Rollins as the chair and Rollins Professor of the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. Previously he was a tenured faculty member and chair of the biostatistics curriculum at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health.

Though he assumed his new post on September 1, he was no stranger to Rollins or the department. “I’ve known about a half of the department’s faculty for at least 10 years, primarily because of their outstanding research,” says Krafty. “I’ve also had several coauthors within the school and the university, so I know what a great collaborative environment it is.”

At the University of Pittsburgh, Krafty led a federally funded transdisciplinary research group. The group’s work included the development of methods and software for using data from wearable and mobile devices for monitoring and treating depression in older adults and the use of EEG and ECG data collected during sleep to understand how treatments of poor sleep can be used to improve women’s health.

Previously, he was an assistant professor of statistics at Temple University. He holds a master’s in mathematics and a PhD in biostatistics from the University of Pennsylvania.

His teaching and research have earned him multiple honors and recognitions, including the 2016 Philips Grand Challenge Award (University of Pittsburgh), the award for High Achievement in Sponsored Projects (Temple University), and University of Pennsylvania’s Award for Outstanding Teaching. He is actively engaged with a number of scientific and research organizations, and he currently serves as the associate editor of both the American Statistician and Statistics and Its Interface and is on the editorial board of Sleep.

Krafty replaces Dr. John Hanfelt, who has served as interim chair of the department since 2017.