The Department of Biostatistics is delighted to announce the appointment of Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Data Science Roberta DeVito as the Thomas J. and Alice M. Tisch Assistant Professor in recognition of her outstanding contributions as a scholar and educator. This prestigious professorship is awarded to the most accomplished faculty members at Brown University in the fields of quantitative social sciences and physical or biological sciences.

With a passion for creating innovative statistical models and tools to address health-related issues, Professor DeVito is dedicated to advancing methods for analyzing complex, high-dimensional, and diverse datasets. Her research focuses on understanding the associations and impacts of nutrition and genomic data on diseases. To achieve this, she employs Bayesian approaches and machine learning techniques, exploring critical topics such as cancer prevention and detection, as well as depression in children and teenagers.

Professor DeVito’s academic journey commenced with a B.S. in Statistics from the University La Sapienza in Rome and culminated with a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Padua, Italy. Her academic pursuits were further enriched during her time as a visiting Ph.D. student at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and as a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University. 

The Thomas J. and Alice M. Tisch Assistant Professorship is a testament to Professor DeVito’s exceptional contributions to her field.

Thomas and Alice Tisch, renowned for their abiding support of Brown, have been steadfast advocates of the university’s academic mission. During his tenure as chancellor, Thomas Tisch played a leading role in guiding Brown through the challenges of the 2008 financial crisis, overseeing significant growth in the physical campus and in the university’s stature. President Christina H. Paxson has acknowledged Thomas and Alice Tisch as “the largest benefactors to Brown'' who have championed the “ideals of academic excellence and open inquiry” throughout their long-standing commitment to the university.