SUMMARY
Felicity T. Enders, Ph.D., is a highly successful, collaborative biostatistician. She has more than 180 publications with an H index of over 60 and I-100 over 25. Dr. Enders has partnered with researchers in clinical areas across the translational science spectrum. Most recently, this has included women's health and psychology.
Dr. Enders' research focuses on educating researchers. For about 15 years, this took the form of statistics education.
Leveraging her award-winning expertise, Dr. Enders developed a national statistics education research team within the Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design special interest group of the Association for Clinical and Translational Science. Her research interests have now evolved to equity, including hidden curriculum for research, health equity engineering and measurement of racism for research.
Focus areas
- Hidden curriculum for research. Diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) are essential to achieve health equity in medical research. DEIA drives recruitment, retention, and success for students and junior faculty from underrepresented backgrounds. Yet research has historically focused on these people themselves rather than on the environment in which they are situated. Hidden curriculum for research includes topics that institutions need researchers to learn but do not typically teach. Dr. Enders has demonstrated that people from underrepresented backgrounds need more help in learning hidden curricula, while mentors need help unraveling skills for which they may lack lived experience. As with all her work, Dr. Enders provides practical tools to elucidate these concepts for mentees and mentors, with the goal that the tools be applied for all people. The tools are designed to benefit all while providing differentially impactful support to those most in need.
- Health equity engineering. People from populations experiencing health disparity are frequently at risk of excess stress and accelerated aging. This could be viewed as a barrier, as efforts toward health equity that focus on inclusion could be stymied by chronic disease resulting from accelerated biological aging. However, health equity engineering leverages this key concept to identify a new pathway for medicine to achieve health equity through screening for chronic stress and treating accelerated aging. As a scientific framework to guide research, health equity engineering identifies people at risk of poor health outcomes due to chronic stress and accelerated aging, integrates these tools within healthcare system infrastructures, and assesses their effectiveness and sustainability. Health equity engineering is anchored in the premise that strategic intervention at the individual level can help all people at risk of accelerated aging while providing critical support for those from groups at highest risk of accelerated aging.
- Measuring racism for research. Racism has become inadvertently yet deeply ingrained within the research enterprise through the pervasive practice of including race as a predictor variable in research. Dr. Enders is endeavoring to identify appropriate measurement tools to replace race to rectify this mistake.
- Biostatistics education. Dr. Enders' research includes statistics education for those who are not statisticians. Her most recent efforts include establishing national competencies through the Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design special interest group of the Association for Clinical and Translational Science.
Significance to patient care
Dr. Enders' work as a collaborative statistician has transformed patient care, from developing noninvasive scoring and scoping systems to linking medicines to potential harm for patients.
Professional highlights
- Director, Equity Catalyst Program, Office of Research Equity, Inclusion and Diversity, Mayo Clinic, 2024-present.
- Center for Clinical and Translational Science, Mayo Clinic:
- Co-principal investigator and associate director, 2023-present.
- Director, Education Resources, 2023-present.
- Educator of the Year Award, 2013.
- Deputy director for Equity, Inclusion and Diversity, Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center, Mayo Clinic, 2022-present.
- Association for Clinical and Translational Science:
- Lifetime Achievement Award for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, 2024.
- Member, Board of Directors, 2020-present.
- Fellow, American Statistical Association, 2020-present.
- Director, Office of Research Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity, Mayo Clinic, 2002-present.
- Publication Award for "The hidden curriculum in health care academia: An exploratory study for the development of an action plan for the inclusion of diverse trainees," Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, 2023.
- Fellow, Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine, Drexel University, 2022-2023.
- American College of Gastroenterology:
- Presidential Poster Award, 2010, 2013, and 2015.
- Author, President's Plenary Session, 2011.
- Biomedical Statistics and Informatics Meritorious Award, Department of Health Sciences Research, Mayo Clinic, 2012-2013.