MinJae Lee, Ph.D.

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Dr. MinJae Lee joined Department of Population & Data Sciences as an Associate Professor in March, 2020. She is currently an Associate Professor of Biostatistics in Peter O’Donnell Jr. School of Public Health, and serves as Chair of Population Science Protocol Review and Monitoring Committee (PRMC) at Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center. Prior to joining UTSW, she served as an Associate/Assistant Professor of Biostatistics in Division of Clinical & Translational Sciences at University of Texas McGovern Medical School, UTHealth (2012-2020), and a Research Instructor of Biostatistics at School of Medicine, Magee-Womens Research Institute, University of Pittsburgh (2010-2012). Dr. Lee received her Ph.D. degree in Biostatistics at Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh in 2010. 

Dr. Lee's research focus centers around developing and applying innovative statistical methods to solve challenges and issues found in everyday research settings. She has gained extensive experience working at multidisciplinary research units of academic medical centers. Dr. Lee has developed successful collaborations with research investigators of various specialties and actively participated in publications and grant submissions for the various studies that involve the application of advanced statistical analysis methods. As a result of her extensive collaborative/scientific research activities including cancer prevention/behavioral intervention trials, acute/chronic disease biomarkers analysis, maternal/child health studies, and multi-site longitudinal studies, Dr. Lee became familiar with varying levels of statistical/epidemiological challenges in analyzing complex data; she identified the areas requiring methodologic development and provided solutions to address clinically relevant questions by developing innovative statistical methods and illustrating their proper applications to real data. Dr. Lee developed multiple statistical approaches based on quantile regression, non-/semi-parametric statistical methods or Bayesian methodology to deal with various types of measurement errors in self-reported data, truncated/censored values due to limit of detections in biomarkers or environmental measurements, missing values in longitudinal/multi-level data under various mechanisms. She has also contributed to the university through teaching and serving on committees across campuses. She is a member of American Statistical Associations and an active reviewer/associate editor of several statistical and clinical journals. 

• Development of statistical methods for analyzing censored/truncated biomarkers or environmental measurements subject to detection limits
• Imputation/estimation methods development for handling missing and/or censored values in longitudinal data
• Measurement errors in self-reported data
• Methodology for data management/quality assurance
• Multi-level/longitudinal data analysis methods
• Semi-/non-parametric statistical methods
• Statistical analysis and design for cancer prevention/behavioral intervention trials
• Statistical challenges of epidemiological research in maternal/child health
• Translational research

Featured Publications

Participant engagement in a community health worker-delivered intervention and type 2 diabetes clinical outcomes: a quasiexperimental study in MexicanAmericans.

Reininger BM, Lopez J, Zolezzi M, Lee M, Mitchell-Bennett LA, Xu T, Park SK, Saldana MV, Perez L, Payne LY, Collier C, McCormick JB, BMJ Open 2022 Nov 12 11 e063521

Evaluating the Dissemination and Implementation of a Community Health Worker-Based Community Wide Campaign to Improve Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Physical Activity among Latinos along the U.S.-Mexico Border.

Yeh PG, Reininger BM, Mitchell-Bennett LA, Lee M, Xu T, Davé AC, Park SK, Ochoa-Del Toro AG, Int J Environ Res Public Health 2022 Apr 19 8

Identifying Trajectories of Radiographic Spinal Disease in Ankylosing Spondylitis: A 15-year follow up study of the PSOAS Cohort.

Hwang MC, Lee M, Gensler LS, Brown MA, Tahanan A, Rahbar MH, Hunter T, Shan M, Ishimori ML, Reveille JD, Weisman MH, Learch TJ, Rheumatology (Oxford) 2021 Aug

Maternal obesity, pregnancy weight gain, and birth weight and risk of colorectal cancer.

Murphy CC, Cirillo PM, Krigbaum NY, Singal AG, Lee M, Zaki T, Burstein E, Cohn BA, Gut 2021 Aug

Scaling a Community-Wide Campaign Intervention to Manage Hypertension and Weight Loss.

Reininger BM, Mitchell-Bennett LA, Lee M, Yeh PG, Davé AC, Park SK, Xu T, Ochoa-Del Toro AG, Front Med (Lausanne) 2021 8 661353

Neuropeptide Y nerve paracrine regulation of prostate cancer oncogenesis and therapy resistance.

Ding Y, Lee M, Gao Y, Bu P, Coarfa C, Miles B, Sreekumar A, Creighton CJ, Ayala G, Prostate 2020 Oct

Improved diabetes control among low-income Mexican Americans through community-clinical interventions: results of an RCT.

Reininger BM, Lee M, Hessabi M, Mitchell-Bennett LA, Sifuentes MR, Guerra JA, Ayala CD, Xu T, Polletta V, Flynn A, Rahbar MH, BMJ Open Diabetes Res Care 2020 May 8 1

A latent class based imputation method under Bayesian quantile regression framework using asymmetric Laplace distribution for longitudinal medication usage data with intermittent missing values.

Lee M, Rahbar MH, Gensler LS, Brown M, Weisman M, Reveille JD, J Biopharm Stat 2020 30 1 160-177

Home Visit Intervention Promotes Lifestyle Changes: Results of an RCT in Mexican Americans.

Vidoni ML, Lee M, Mitchell-Bennett L, Reininger BM, Am J Prev Med 2019 11 57 5 611-620

A generalized weighted quantile sum approach for analyzing correlated data in the presence of interactions.

Lee M, Rahbar MH, Samms-Vaughan M, Bressler J, Bach MA, Hessabi M, Grove ML, Shakespeare-Pellington S, Coore Desai C, Reece JA, Loveland KA, Boerwinkle E, Biom J 2019 07 61 4 934-954