Mary E. Putt, PhD, ScD

Dr. Putt is a translational scientist, whose goal is to both bring state-of-the-art statistical methodologies to the design and analysis of biomedical research studies, and to adapt/develop methodologies to meet the needs of her research collaborators. Over her career Dr. Putt has collaborated with researchers in many fields including intellectual and developmental disabilities, health incentives and behavioral economics, cardiovascular medicine, cancer and HIV/AIDS. Her primary focus is on clinical trials in academic settings. She has long-standing methodologic interests in studies involving matching. Examples include crossover trials where individuals are matched to themselves longitudinally, by crossing over from one to a second treatment and matched-pair cluster randomized trials where clusters are matched prior to randomization. Relative to unmatched designs, matching can substantially improve efficiency but this improvement in efficiency comes with costs and caveats.

Dr. Putt directs NIH-funded biostatistics and data science cores for the CHOP/Penn Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, the FLASH program in Radiation Oncology, and is the co-director for the CFAR Biostatistics and Data Science Core. She has served on multiple NIH review panels, been a statistical editor for Gastroenterology and Cancer, and is currently active with Data Safety Monitoring Boards for Phase III randomized trials in academic settings. Dr. Putt previously served as the Director of the Biostatistics Graduate Program and the Associate Chair of the Graduate Program in Epidemiology & Biostatistics. She is devoted to helping students and trainees with diverse backgrounds appreciate the role of chance in biomedical research. She has mentored both MS and PhD students in the Biostatistics program, directed two PhD dissertations in Biostatistics, and served as Biostatistics mentor to graduate and post-doctoral trainees across varied disciplines at Penn.