Dionne Price facts for kids
Dionne L. Price (August 29, 1971 – February 22, 2024) was a groundbreaking American statistician. A statistician is an expert who works with data, which is information in the form of numbers. They use data to find patterns and help make important decisions.
Price became the first African-American president of the American Statistical Association (ASA). The ASA is the largest group of professional statisticians in the world. She also worked for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where she was a director in the Office of Biostatistics. At the FDA, her team used statistics to help decide if new medicines were safe and effective for people to use. These medicines included treatments for infections, viruses, eye problems, and organ transplants.
Early Life and Education
Price was African-American and grew up in Portsmouth, Virginia. Her mother was a schoolteacher, which inspired her love for learning.
She went to Norfolk State University and studied applied mathematics. After college, she earned a master's degree from the University of North Carolina. Price then went to Emory University for her Ph.D., which she completed in 2000. Her final research project, called a dissertation, was titled Survival Models for Heterogeneous Populations with Cure.
With this achievement, she became the first African-American to earn a doctorate in biostatistics (using statistics in biology and medicine) from Emory University. After finishing her education, she began her important career at the Food and Drug Administration.
Career and Contributions
At the FDA, Price helped start a program to encourage smarter and more modern ways of testing new drugs. This program, called the Complex Innovative Trial Design Pilot Meeting Program, helped speed up the development of safe and effective medicines for patients.
Price was also dedicated to helping the next generation of statisticians. In 2016, she was the main speaker at StatFest, a conference at Howard University. This event was created by the ASA to support and encourage students from groups that are often underrepresented in statistics.
Honors and Recognition
Price's hard work and leadership earned her many honors.
- In 2018, she was named a Fellow of the ASA. This is a very high honor given to only a small number of members each year.
- In 2022, she was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), another major scientific organization.
- On January 1, 2023, she began her term as the 118th president of the American Statistical Association. She was the first African-American to ever hold this important role.
