Donna  Brogan

Donna Brogan had a 34 year academic career as a biostatistics faculty member, first at UNC School of Public Health in Chapel Hill and then at Emory University in both the School of Medicine and the Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH).  She taught graduate courses in biostatistics and in her specialty area, sample survey design and analysis.  She conducted methodological and collaborative research, frequently working with sociologists, psychologists, and physicians.  She is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and received the Elizabeth Scott award for fostering opportunites for women in statistics.  Gettysburg College, Purdue University and Iowa State University selected her for distinguished alumni awards.  She received the Thomas Jefferson Award from Emory for outstanding service to the university over many years.  After retirement from Emory in 2004 she still teaches continuing education (CE) courses on analysis of data from complex sample surveys and consults on design and/or analysis of complex sample surveys, including legal cases. Over 2500 profesisonals in epidemiology, biostatistics and related disciplines have attended her 135 CE workshops since 1990.  Recently she has given talks and published papers about her nonlinear path to a biostatistics academic career, which began in the late 1950's when few women pursued undergraduate or graduate work in mathematics or statistics.  The RSPH Biostatistics & Bioinformatics Department has sponsored the annual Donna J. Brogan Lecture in Biostatistics since 2006, featuring each year a well-known and esteemed biostatistician or statistician.  In 2020 the Donna J. Brogan Professorship in Biostatistics was established at RSPH, and Dr. Amita Manatunga was named as the first Donna J. Brogan Professor of Biostatistics.