Josée Dupuis Named President-Elect of International Genetic Epidemiology Society.

Josée Dupuis, a professor and associate chair of biostatistics at the School of Public Health, has been named president-elect of the International Genetic Epidemiology Society (IGES).

The society supports and distributes research on the “distribution and determinants of human disease, with emphasis on possible familial and hereditary factors as revealed by genetic, molecular, and epidemiological investigations.”

As president-elect, Dupuis will be part of a team heading a collaborative international community of leaders in genetics, epidemiology, statistics, biology, and related biomedical disciplines, all with a keen interest in and intense enthusiasm for solving complex scientific problems in genetic epidemiology and statistical genetics.

Her term as president-elect began on January 1, and she will serve in that position for a year before stepping into the role of president for a one-year term. Following that, she will serve a year as past-president.

In 2013, Dupuis was named a fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA), the nation’s preeminent professional statistical society. She was honored for “outstanding contributions to the development and application of statistical methods for genetics data; for excellence of collaborative research in mapping human complex disease genes; and for significant service to the profession, particularly at the interface of statistics with genetic epidemiology and medicine.”

In November 2014, Dupuis was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), honored for her “distinguished contributions to the field of statistical genetics,” which have led to the “discovery and improved understanding of the genetic basis for common human diseases.”

In addition to her work at SPH, Dupuis serves as faculty on BU’s interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Bioinformatics. The program, one of the nation’s first of its kind, offers unique interdisciplinary training in the science, engineering, medicine, and ethics of 21st-century cell biology.

Dupuis previously held a faculty position at Northwestern University and was a senior statistical geneticist at Genome Therapeutics Corporation, a small biotech company that was one of the industry leaders in genomic mapping and sequencing.

Along with her extensive experience in the development and application of methods for mapping complex traits, Dupuis’s work has included the development of rare variant association tests in families.

She is also involved with research associated with the Framingham Heart Study, collaborating on projects to identify genes influencing diabetes-related traits, pulmonary function, and biomarkers of inflammation.