Susan S. Ellenberg

Susan S. Ellenberg, PhD

sellenbe@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
  • Titles:
  • Emeritus Professor of Biostatistics, Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics
  • Emeritus Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy
  • Senior Scholar, Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistic
  • Education:
  • The George Washington University, PhD, Mathematical Statistics

Dr. Ellenberg’s research has focused on practical problems and ethical issues in designing, conducting and analyzing data from clinical trials, including surrogate endpoints, data monitoring committees, clinical trial designs, adverse event monitoring, vaccine safety and special issues in cancer and AIDS trials. At Penn, in addition to her teaching and administrative duties she serves as senior statistician for several multicenter clinical trials and directs the Biostatistics Core of the Penn Center for AIDS Research.  She chairs the organizing committee for the annual Penn conference on statistical issues in clinical trials. She also served for many years as Associate Dean for Clinical Research, overseeing the human subjects protections programs, training and centralized research support of the Perelman School of Medicine. 

Prior to her appointment at Penn, Dr. Ellenberg held positions of increasing responsibility in the federal government. From 1993 to 2004, she served as Director, Office of Biostatistics and Epidemiology in the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; prior to that she served as the first Chief of the Biostatistics Research Branch in the Division of AIDS, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (1988-1993), and served in the Biometric Research Branch in the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program, National Cancer Institute (1982-1988). 

Dr. Ellenberg is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, the Society for Clinical Trials and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. She is the 2019 recipient of the Florence Nightingale David Award, a biannual award given jointly by the major North American statistical societies to a female statistician for outstanding achievements. The first edition of her book, Data Monitoring Committees in Clinical Trials: A Practical Perspective, co-authored with Drs. Thomas Fleming and David DeMets, was named WileyEurope Statistics Book of the Year for 2002; a second edition was released in March 2019.

Selected Publications
2018 Clinical Infectious Diseases Susan S Ellenberg, Gerald T Keusch, Abdel G Babiker, Kathryn M Edwards, Roger J Lewis Jens D Lundgren, Charles D Wells, Fred Wabwire-Mangen, and Keith P W J McAdam
Rigorous Clinical Trial Design in Public Health Emergencies Is Essential
2017 The Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics Susan Ellenberg and Steven Joffe
Studying Effects of Medical Treatments: Randomized Clinical Trials and the Alternatives
2017 JAMA Budoff MJ, Ellenberg SS, Lewis CE, Mohler ER 3rd, Wenger NK, Bhasin S, Barrett-Connor E, Swerdloff RS, Stephens-Shields A, Cauley JA, Crandall JP, Cunningham GR, Ensrud KE, Gill TM, Matsumoto AM, Molitch ME, Nakanishi R, Nezarat N, Matsumoto S, Hou X, Basaria S, Diem SJ, Wang C, Cifelli D, Snyder PJ
Testosterone Treatment and Coronary Artery Plaque Volume in Older Men With Low Testosterone.
2016 AJOB empirical bioethics Kraybill A, Dember LM, Joffe S, Karlawish J, Ellenberg SS, Madden V, Halpern SD
Patient and Physician Views about Protocolized Dialysis Treatment in Randomized Trials and Clinical Care.
2016 The New England Journal of Medicine Peter J. Snyder, MD, Shalender Bhasin, MD, Glenn R. Cunningham, MD, Alvin M. Matsumoto, MD, Alisa J. Stephens-Shields, PhD, Jane A. Cauley, DrPH, Thomas M. Gill, MD, Elizabeth Barrett-Connor, MD, Ronald S. Swerdloff, MD, Christina Wang, MD, Kristine E. Ensrud, MD, MPH, Cora E. Lewis, MD, MSPH, John T. Farrar, MD, PhD, David Cella, PhD, Raymond C. Rosen, PhD, Marco Pahor, MD, Jill P. Crandall, MD, Mark E. Molitch, MD, Denise Cifelli, MS, Darlene Dougar, MPH, Laura Fluharty, MPH, Susan M. Resnick, PhD, Thomas W. Storer, PhD, Stephen Anton, PhD, Shehzad Basaria, MD, Susan J. Diem, MD, MPH, Xiaoling Hou, MS, Emile R. Mohler, III, MD, J. Kellogg Parsons, MD, MHS, Nanette K. Wenger, MD, Bret Zeldow, MS, J. Richard Landis, PhD, and Susan S. Ellenberg, PhD
Effects of Testosterone Treatment in Older Men
2016 Clinical Trials (London, England) Fleming TR, Ellenberg SS
Evaluating Interventions for Ebola: The Need for Randomized Trials
2016 The New England Journal of Medicine David L. DeMets, PhD, and Susan S. Ellenberg, PhD
Data Monitoring Committees — Expect the Unexpected

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