Pericchi, Luis – Bayesian Statistics in Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease and Health Econometrics

Dr. Pericchi has currently three long term projects that involve big data from Puerto Rico, and that require exploratory data analysis, modeling, inference and prediction. Currently he is the Co-PI of the “Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Bioinformatics BEBiC Core” of the U54 Collaborative 5 year Grant between the University of Puerto Rico and MDAnderson Cancer Center. He is collaborating with Drs. Perez-Hernandez and Ortiz-Zuazaga and directing students to search for predictive models of prostate cancer severity that involve over 800 patients and around 600 potential explanatory variables. Another aspect of his cancer-related research deals with the design of multidimensional engineering experiments for alternative cancer treatments to radio- and chemo- therapies that give rise to response surfaces in several dimensions. Regarding heart disease and stroke, he has worked with the School of Medicine Endowed Health Services Research Center, and a database of cardiovascular diseases in Puerto Rico was established with several possible explanatory variables, giving rise to several potential data science projects. Regarding health econometrics and related fields, Dr. Pericchi has been directing projects to capture masses of information of credit behavior in Puerto Rico, as well its modeling.

Dr. Pericchi has a long trajectory on different aspects of Bayesian Statistics, but especially in: Foundations of Decision Theory, Model Selection, Bayesian Robustness, Bayesian Treatment of Conflicting Evidence and Applications to Statistics of Extremes, Detection of Fraud, Medical Diagnoses and Clinical Trials. He is an elected member of ISBA: International Society for Bayesian Analysis and the current president of its Section of Objective Bayes.