Dr. Person is Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS).  She is also a Dr. Marcellette G.Williams Senior Scholar. Prior to joining UMMS she was an Associate Professor of Medicine, Biostatistics and Psychology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.  There she served as the Director of the NHLBI funded CARDIA Coordinating Center as well as the Director of the Methodology Units of both the Center for Outcomes Effectiveness Research and Education (COERE) and the Center for Education and Research Therapeutics (CERTs) of Musculoskeletal Disorders.   She also directed her Division’s statistical, data management, and information systems infrastructure.

She is currently Associate Director and a senior faculty member in the Quantitative Methods Core which provides consultative services to UMMS investigators in the areas of study design, sample size, power calculations, statistical analysis plans, statistical programming, data entry and management, and project coordination.  Additionally, she teaches in the Clinical and Population Health Research Ph.D. Program, leads a course for the UMMS Health Science Preparation Program, serves as the Director of Summer Internships in the Division of Biostatistics and Health Services Research and helps train new research investigators in Parana, Brazil.  She also serves as the Director of the Research Core for the UMASS Center for Health Equity Intervention Research (CHEIR).  Nationally, she serves on several Data Safety and Observational Study Monitoring Boards, is an active grant reviewer for NHLBI, NCI, and the Center for Scientific Review.

Dr. Person’s research interests include general and generalized linear models, cluster randomized designs, quality control and health disparities.