Our History

The Department of Biostatistics at Brown University was launched in July 2011 as one of the four constituent departments of the Brown University School of Public Health. The formation of the department was the culmination of fifteen years of growth in biostatistics at Brown, beginning with the founding of the Center for Statistical Sciences (CSS) in 1995 as a unit of Brown's medical school.

Over the years, CSS developed a robust research enterprise and provided the academic strength and infrastructure for the growth of the biostatistics faculty and the launching of degree programs in biostatistics in 1999 (Ph.D.) and 2007 (Sc.M., A.M.). The undergraduate Statistics Concentration was also formed in 1997, with the center's leadership. In 2006, the biostatistics section of the Department of Community Health was formed as a transitional organization for the biostatistics faculty in the process of laying the foundations for the establishment of the Department of Biostatistics.

In October 2024, the School of Public Health marked 30 years of biostatistics at the University with the symposium “Health Data Science: State of the Art and a Look into the Future,” which brought together leading experts from Brown, Harvard, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, the University of Florida, the University of California San Francisco and the Mayo Clinic. In 2025, the Center for Statistical Sciences was re-christened as the Center for Biostatistics and Health Data Science.