Chris Barker (BIOST ’80) emphasizes the value of his experiences in graduate school, particularly at the University of Pittsburgh. "I think that's kind of where I thrive," he says. "Being able to interpret complex statistical models and communicate them to non-technical stakeholders is a big thing that I think employers are looking for." His areas of expertise lie in collaborating with researchers to design and analyze studies, particularly in the fields of medicine and public health, and developing and implementing statistical models to analyze data.
After graduating from the University of Colorado with an undergraduate degree in economics, Barker decided to pursue a master’s degree in economics at Northwestern University. He found that the program was more math-intensive than he had anticipated, the most difficult course being statistics. "There were hours and hours of studying, and I did not enjoy economics," he shares. A colleague suggested that he investigate a degree in public health, something he had never heard of before. He searched for schools of public health and selected the University of Pittsburgh because he grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
"I went through the catalog and they talked about jobs, which was the big problem I had with economics - I couldn't figure out what kind of job I would ever do," he recalls. Barker was impressed by the School of Public Health faculty's relationships with organizations such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), knowing that would mean he’d have opportunities to work with similar organizations. The School of Public Health seemed like a good fit – more job oriented, applied. The priority Pitt placed on students getting jobs after graduation led him to pack his bags, hop in his car and start driving. The trip itself turned out to be an adventure since his car broke down and he had to arrange to have it towed to Pittsburgh.
He got there eventually, though, and upon enrolling at Pitt, he originally pursued a program in health administration. Then, at the suggestion of one of the faculty, Carol Redmond, he applied and was selected for a summer internship at NCHS working with survey statisticians. When he got back to campus in the fall, Barker found a note in his mailbox requesting he pay a visit to Redmond. When he did, he learned that she was his new advisor, at least temporarily, as his original advisor was no longer with the University. Redmond also proposed a new arrangement for funding: working with her and the cancer clinical trials group the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP). From that moment in Redmond’s office, Barker has ever since worked on clinical trials, often in oncology and pharmaceutical economics with drugs such as Herceptin for breast cancer, Xeloda for colon cancer and Oncotype DX, a genomic diagnostic for breast cancer.
While working on the NSABP, Barker developed skills in FORTRAN and SPSS (at the time) programming and data analysis. He was later tasked with visiting the NSABP office as part of the collaboration between Genentech, his then employer, and NSABP for jointly-conducted clinical trials for Herceptin.
Working with Redmond, Barker also learned about the importance of being able to communicate complex statistical models to non-technical stakeholders. "You don't just assume that you come in and you know how to program a computer - you have to be able to program a computer, and not just in one language, but in several languages. That was the environment that Carol created, and it was a very nice place to work," he says.
Redmond’s influence on Barker continued throughout his career. Later, when he worked at the University of Chicago and reported to Paul Meier, the statistician who co-invented the product limit estimator now called the Kaplan Meier Estimator, the two became friends and Meier a mentor to Barker, in large part because Meier had the highest regard for Redmond. He later found her influence continued when attending his first medical congress at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.
“During a plenary session with the PI of NSABP and what seemed to be at least 500 or more people in the room, mostly men, I have never forgotten the speaker saying ‘…and my statistician, Dr. Carol Redmond, explained to me how to interpret this graph. She told me what to say.’” That moment cemented Barker’s commitment to clinical trials and oncology research, he remembers.
He credits the School of Public Health with providing a well-rounded education that prepared him for his career. "I think the thing that I got out of Pitt was a very good understanding of the practical application of statistics," he says. That's something that I've been able to use throughout my career." He also notes that the program was flexible and allowed him some autonomy to pursue his own interests and praised as invaluable the University's emphasis on collaboration and teamwork. "Pitt gave you the opportunity to work with other people, to learn how to communicate with them, and to learn how to work in a team environment."
And of course, he credits Redmond. “Dr. Carol Redmond was my largest inspiration at Pitt. She was a really big part of our department.” Barker is working to establish the Chris Barker Fund to honor Redmond and pay tribute to her legacy. The award will support future statisticians looking to make a meaningful impact to the field, specifically by providing additional opportunities for students from underrepresented backgrounds.
“Carol was a remarkable statistician. She was the real thing. Carol was wonderful, and she made incredible contributions to the field of public health. She had vast experience in oncology clinical trials that came from a time where oncologists made cancer treatment recommendations based on their personal case series through the adoption worldwide of the gold standard in research – randomized clinical trials,” Barker explains.
After completing his PhD at the University of Illinois, and working at the University of Chicago, and after the births of his sons Nathaniel and Adam, Barker decided to pursue a career in industry. "I figured out that I didn't want to stay in academia – I needed a job, and publication was not my strong suit at that point," he says. Joining the pharmaceutical industry guaranteed he would continue working on clinical trials.
He began his work at Lorex Pharmaceuticals, where he prepared statistical analysis plans for pivotal phase III clinical trials, contributing to the successful development of several drugs. His expertise quickly led him to Syntex Pharmaceuticals where he played a key role in the CELLCEPT registration team, preparing the dossier for international submission and approval. CELLCEPT was the first drug formally approved by the FDA for patients receiving either a kidney, heart or liver transplant.
Barker then began working at ROCHE Pharmaceuticals where he developed methodologies for health economics modeling and trained a team of statisticians. His career culminated at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals where he was associate director of biostatistics, overseeing clinical trials for Natrecor and earning a Best Poster Award at ISPOR where he used a “propensity score” analysis, now a standard methodology in the statistician toolbox of statistical methods.
Barker's advice to students is to persevere and not give up, even when things get challenging. Recognizing that the field of biostatistics is vast and continues to expand, for those students considering a career in the field, he wants to encourage people to finish their graduate degrees and, time permitting, take at least one course with Bayesian statistical methods and computation in Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC).
While working in the pharmaceutical industry Barker decided to also become an independent statistical consultant. An advantage was that as a consultant he could work for more than one company at a time. He also has numerous publications arising from working on clinical trials. His interest in research piqued later in his career, and he has also published three articles as sole author or main contributor. One of which is about the calculation of the mean for the Kaplan Meier Distribution. By some serendipity, even Meier read the paper and gave it high praise.
Through this work, Barker made significant contributions to biostatistics and public health, establishing himself as a leader in the field. He also contributed frequently as a volunteer for the American Statistical Association (ASA). Most recently he was chair of the ASA Statistical Consulting Section. Barker retired in 2019 and has since been very active in consulting and professional education-related volunteer activities with the ASA. His most recent project is organizing statisticians and statistics departments for twelve universities in the California Central Valley to join the association.
One of Barker's favorite memories from his time at Pittsburgh is bike riding around the city. "I used to do a lot of bike riding in Pittsburgh, and I would go all over the place. I would get a map, and just kind of aim in a certain direction. One time, I’d go north, and then next time I would go south, and then the time after that I would go east, and then go west," he recalls. He also enjoyed trying different types of food, including Greek cuisine. "Pittsburgh was the only place that actually had real Greek food. They actually knew that when you went in to get a gyro, it's not a ‘gye-roe’, it's a ‘yer-oh’," he notes.
Barker now resides in Napa, California and enjoys occasional statistical projects and the view from his home of the Vaca and Mayacamas mountain ranges, those that form the Napa Valley. He has two publications appearing this year in the Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics.