Beth J. Atkinson, M.S.

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SUMMARY

Beth J. Atkinson, M.S., is a principal biostatistician who uses statistical methodologies, including survival analysis, epidemiology, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and other analyses of omics data to study a variety of medical conditions. Atkinson is also an expert in R software, which is a statistical programming language used to perform data analysis, modeling and visualization for data science, scientific research and technical communications.

Much of Atkinson's clinical research experience in the past three decades has focused on the study of aging. She collaborates with several investigators in the Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging.

Focus areas

• R software. Atkinson has been instrumental in supporting the R software environment at Mayo Clinic and maintains the widely used rpart package, which is a powerful machine learning library in R used to build classification and regression trees. She also sits on the planning committee for the R/Medicine conference, a virtual meeting focused on sharing R-based tools to analyze and gain insights from health data.
• Survival analysis methodology. Atkinson collaborates with Terry M. Therneau, Ph.D. and Cynthia S. Crowson, Ph.D. on development of a survival analysis book and on updating the survival package within the R software environment.
• Aging. Atkinson is involved in a variety of studies attempting to better understand the biological aging process and the influence of comorbidities on that process. This includes investigation of cellular senescence, a cell state caused by diverse forms of damage that is thought to have an impact on physical function, metabolism and resilience.

Significance to patient care

Atkinson's work in genetics research is aimed at identifying which genetic factors can be combined with known lifestyle factors to improve detection and treatment of specific medical conditions. In addition, she conducts research aimed at improving the diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis.