Biostatistics PhD in Boston U vs. Brown U

[JonnyW]

Hi everyone,

Would anybody like to share the opinions or any information to compare BU and Brown in Biostatistics PhD?

It is exciting to have been accepted to both of them. I graduated from BU in statistics master program, and have two years of working experience in a research group where I am already familiar with a professor in Biostat at BU, and because of these, I am more familiar with BU and its Biostat program/faculty.

Brown is new to me, and I know their program is relatively new, which actually is one of the concerns. I talked to one of the professors there who is very nice. They currently provide an unofficial offer and is waiting for my response. I will definitely be visiting brown. Both of them have their strengths and not easy for me to decide. Any information about them would be super helpful for me. Thank you for any comment

[Geococcyx]

EDIT:  Obligatory note that I'm not an expert, and my ability to judge who is and isn't a good researcher is neutered by my lack of knowledge of their in-field reputation, along with lack of any experience or particular knowledge of most of their papers.

I can only really comment on Brown.  Brown's program is, I guess, new in the grand scheme of things, but they aren't Vanderbilt/Duke biostatistics new -- they have actual alumni plural (and more on the order of 30 than, say, 2), so I wouldn't really worry too much about the age of the department.  Obviously, one of the ways Brown stands out relative to some other departments is that they're very small -- I recall that they wanted somewhere between 4 and 6 incoming students this year (and even 6 seemed like a bit of a stretch) -- so if you are from a really small university or really enjoy lots of one-on-one advising, then that's something to consider.  Since this isn't exactly NC State statistics size-wise, you aren't really at risk of "getting lost" amidst all the other students, if that is a concern of yours. 

Brown has quite a few good faculty by my estimation -- I know Dr. Gutman is a good researcher in causal inference, and Dr. Schmid (the department head) works on clinical trials and meta-analysis.  Beyond them, Dr. Lorin Crawford is a rising star (enough so that I might even be a bit worried about how long he'll be at Brown), albeit Dr. Crawford is kinda splitting the difference between the biostatistics and computational biology departments -- if you care, Dr. Steingrimsson is also rising fast, so I hear.  I can't really comment on everyone, but Dr. Eloyan, Dr. Duan, and Dr. Wu all seemed interesting as well.

If you care, Brown's biostatistics department is located in their school of public health building, which is notable in the sense that you won't really be on the main campus (albeit there's not a long distance to travel to the main campus either).  The state of Rhode Island seems to treat Brown like other states treat flagship public universities, so Brown has a lot of partnerships with hospitals and the state health apparatus.  

Just for my own curiosity's sake, did you not go to the Brown event back in January?  You say you plan on visiting Brown, so is that a secondary visit of some sort?

Edited February 28, 2019 by Geococcyx
I prostrate myself before the faculty/postdocs/grad students who actually kinda know who good researchers are

[GShools]

Based on locations and placements of graduates, I personally vote for BU.  

[bayessays]

3 hours ago, GShools said:

Based on locations and placements of graduates, I personally vote for BU.  

Where did you find their placements? I can't recall seeing many BU grads anywhere. My impression was that BU hasn't launched a lot of big academic careers.  If you want to stay in Boston, I'm sure they have connections locally though. I think of Brown as a better department, which US News seems to agree with. I would choose Brown.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

I can't comment much on the programs, but re: location. It should be noted that Providence, RI is about a 50-minute train ride and a 50-60 minute drive from Boston. And probably way cheaper to live in Providence too. So you would still have fairly close proximity to Boston/Cambridge and its hundreds of biotechnology companies if you attended Brown (a lot of people make the commute between the two cities every weekday).