The Integrated Biostatistics Center (IBC). The mission of the IBC is to enhance FIU’s
research endeavor by providing infrastructure support relevant to biostatistics, data management
and data quality enhancement. It provides this support for investigators and graduate students
for preparing proposals, study design, data collection and management, statistical analyses,
report and manuscript preparation and data archival, much as is the case for Biostatistics Cores at
other universities. It is integrated both in terms of drawing on expertise from across the campus
to provide support for investigators and projects also across the campus. The IBC also
collaborates with entities outside the university. It works in close collaboration with the Center
for Children and Families (CCF) of the College of Arts and Sciences and of the Herbert
Wertheim College of Medicine and the Center for Advanced Technology and Education (CATE)
of the College of Engineering and Computing.
Organization. Leadership includes Drs. O. Dale Williams, Tan Li and Boubakari Ibrahimou, all
faculty of the Department of Biostatistics of the Robert Stempel College of Public Health and
Social Work, as Director and Deputy Directors; Ms Stephanie Garcia, MPH (Biostatistics) as
overall Project Coordinator and Director of Statistical Computing; and Mr. Douglas Theriaque as
Director of Data Management. Mr. Theriaque also serves as Director of Data Services for the
Center for Children and Families. We are also recruiting for a full time faculty level Associate
Director. The organization includes the Office of the Director, the Faculty Support Unit and the
support units for Data Management, Statistical Computing and Information Systems Support
Facilities, Hardware and Software. Facilities include faculty offices provided by departments
and units as per usual university operation, one office suite including a conference room with
video conferencing capability and cubicle space for 10 staff/students and another suite with
offices for six persons, all outfitted with appropriate hardware and the usual collection of office
software. Available also are the data management packages REDCap, Qualtrics, among others
and the statistical software SAS, SPSS, STATA, M+, S+, R, NQuery, PASS. All offices and
cubicles have relatively new computers—we use a three-year renewal cycle—while some have
the additional capacity required for effective simulations. The Information Systems Support
Unit, described below, houses servers and storage equipment required for handling REDCap and
other systems.
Faculty Support Unit. Nine faculty from the Departments of Biostatistics, Psychology, and
Mathematics and Statistics and one from the Baptist Health South System provide
methodological and statistical operations and grant application support. They meet weekly as a
group and all have access to appropriate hardware and software. They also oversee the work of
the Statistical Computing Unit, which includes several graduate students.
Statistical Computing Unit. Led by Ms Stephanie Garcia, also IBC Project Coordinator, who
completed an MPH with a major in Biostatistics, this unit includes 8-10 Graduate Assistants
(GAs) who receive support to work with the Center. The GAs provide statistical computing,
data management, and report generation support and participate in the discussions of the
individual projects.
Data Management Unit. Led by Mr. Douglas Theriaque, this unit develops and implements
high quality and efficient strategies for data collection, management, editing, clean up, and
storage. The Unit includes trained, certified and experienced personnel using sophisticated
software packages, specifically including the highly regarded REDCap system. Data from these
datasets are extracted for statistical analyses done by the Statistical Computing Unit under the
guidance of faculty in the Faculty Support Unit. This Data Management Unit also, in
conjunction with the Information Systems Support Unit, creates and manages a project based
data warehouse.
Information Systems Support Unit. Computational and information systems support—apart
from the desktop machines in individual offices--is focused on functions provided by the CATE
center, under the leadership of Dr. Malek Adjouadi, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and
Electrical and Computer Engineering of the College of Engineering and Computing, with
assistance from Ms Niovi Rojas. Specifically available are: Server Support for the REDCap data
management software system; Virtual Computers for relatively expensive, not heavily used
special purpose software such as NQuery and PASS; File Sharing System for both file sharing
and additional file security and back up; and a Project Data Warehouse that operates under the
concept that all the essential documentation for a specific project stored therein would be readily
available to appropriately certified personnel.