Dr. Gao is a biostatistician whose primary research interests are in the areas of time-to-event and longitudinal data. Specifically, Dr. Gao’s current research involves (1) the assessment of clinical prediction rules, (2) the prediction of survival outcome with time-dependent covariates, (3) growth mixture modeling of longitudinal data, and (4) joint modeling of longitudinal and survival data. He developed a joint model of longitudinal and survival data to assess whether the fluctuation of intraocular pressure is an independent predictor to the risk of developing primary open-angle glaucoma. He also developed a growth mixture model to identify distinct patterns of biomarker trajectories and to monitor disease progression using multivariate longitudinal biomarkers. He is currently providing statistical support for cancer-related studies in the Siteman Cancer Center. His responsibilities include study design, safety monitoring, data analysis, and manuscript/abstract preparation.