Dr. Cynthia Girman, alumna and Public Health Foundation board member at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, has been appointed by the U.S. Comptroller General to the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)  methodology committee.

[Photo: Dr. Cynthia Girman]

Dr. Girman is also adjunct associate professor of epidemiology in the Gillings School’s UNC Center for Pharmacoepidemiology.

PCORI, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization located in Washington, DC, was authorized by Congress as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. The organization’s mandate is to improve the quality and relevance of evidence available to help patients, caregivers, clinicians, employers, insurers, and policy makers make informed health decisions. PCORI’s 17-member Methodology Committee works to define methodological standards for research and develop and regularly update a translation table to guide health care stakeholders towards the best methods for patient-centered outcomes research.

Dr. Girman is executive director and head of data analytics and observational methods in Merck Research Laboratories’ Center for Observational and Real-World Evidence. With experience in biostatistics, epidemiology, and observational research methods, she is involved in a range of collaborative research activities with universities in the U.S. and Europe.

Her academic degrees include a Bachelor of Science in Public Health in biostatistics from the Gillings School of Global Public Health, Master of Science in applied statistics and computer sciences from Villanova University, and a Doctor of Public Health from the Gillings School.