World regional differences in outcomes for patients with peripheral artery disease: Insights from the EUCLID trial.

Rebecca North, PhD

Dr. North is a collaborative biostatistician who lets clinical application drive methodological innovation. This has been true since graduate school at NC State University, where her dissertation focused on variable selection methods for functional data for the purpose of identifying a sparse set of electromyogram signals that would accurately predict the velocity of a prosthetic arm. Also while in graduate school, Dr. North was supported by a T32 Traineeship, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Integrated Biostatistical Training Program for Cardiovascular Disease Research, through which she gained clinical research experience at the Duke Clinical Research Institute with particular focus on atrial fibrillation research.

Since joining the Duke Aging Center, Dr. North has gained statistical experience in latent class analysis, mediation analysis, and meta-analysis, to add to her knowledge of functional data analysis, variable selection techniques, random forests and decision trees, survival analysis, longitudinal data analysis, and other classical frequentist statistical methods. Her clinical areas of interest include circadian rhythm research, cardiovascular research (particularly atrial fibrillation), and Veteran health.

I am an interventional cardiologist with a specific focus on the diagnosis and treatment of patients with cardiovascular disease. As a clinician, I see patients in the office and do coronary and peripheral vascular procedures (angiography and interventions) in the Duke Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory. I have served as the Medical Director of the cath lab at Duke since 2016. Alongside my partners in the cath lab, we collaborate with our cardiothoracic surgeons to hold Heart Team meetings each week, and we frequently are asked to address complex cardiovascular issues as a multidisciplinary team.

I also have a broad background in cardiovascular site-based research, multicenter clinical trials, clinical event classification, and observational analyses. I have helped to lead clinical trial efforts at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) by designing and conducting studies evaluating new and existing treatments for patients with coronary artery disease and peripheral artery disease. My specific research interests include examining access to care and disparities in care for patients with peripheral artery disease and the design and conduct of pragmatic clinical trials in cardiovascular disease.

Frank is a full time Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics and Faculty Director for Biostatistics at Duke University Medical Center, Affiliate Professor of Biostatistics at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Strategic Consultant at Hunter Rockhold, Inc.  His 40+-year career includes senior research positions at Lilly, Merck, and GlaxoSmithKline, where he retired as Chief Safety Officer and Senior Vice President of Global Clinical Safety and Pharmacovigilance.  He has held faculty appointments at six different universities.    Dr. Rockhold served for 9 years on the board of directors of the non-profit CDISC, most recently as Chairman, and is past president of the Society for Clinical Trials and a past member of the PCORI Clinical Trials Advisory Panel. He is currently Chair of the Board of the Frontier Science and Technology Research Foundation and a technical advisor to EMA.

Dr. Rockhold has diverse research interests and consulting experience in industry and academia including clinical trials design, data monitoring, benefit/risk, safety and pharmacovigilance and has been a leader in the scientific community in promoting data disclosure and transparency in clinical research.    Frank is widely published in major scientific journals across a wide variety of research topics.

Frank holds a BA in Statistics from The University of Connecticut, an ScM in Biostatistics from The Johns Hopkins University, and a PhD in Biostatistics from the Medical College of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University. Frank is an Elected Fellow of both the American Statistical Association and the Society for Clinical Trials, a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, an Accredited Professional Statistician, PStat®, and a Chartered Statistician, CStat.