A conversation with John C. Bailar III

Abstract

John Christian Bailar III was born on October 9, 1932, in Urbana, Illinois. He received his B.A. degree from the University of Colorado in 1953, an M.D. from Yale University in 1955 and a Ph.D. in statistics from American University in 1973. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an elected member of the Collegium Ramazzini and a MacArthur Fellow (1990-1995). He was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and has been on the Editorial Board of Cancer Research. He has served as Statistical Consultant for the New England Journal of Medicine and is currently a member of its Editorial Board. He has served as Chair of the Biometrics Section of the American Statistical Association, was Founding Chair of the Boston Chapter of the Society for Risk Analysis and was President of the Council of Biology Editors. His tenure at NIH included the years 1956-1970 and 1972-1980 on staff at the National Cancer Institute, with a stint at the Veterans Administration from 1970-1972. He began as a Field Investigator in the Biometry Branch, was appointed Head of the Demography Section and then Director of the Third National Cancer Survey. His last appointment at NCI was Deputy Associate Director for Cancer Control. He was awarded the Commendation Medal from the United States Public Health Service for his work on breast cancer screening. Since leaving NIH, he was a Senior Scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services, a Lecturer in Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health, on staff at the Health Effects Institute and Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McGill University Faculty of Medicine. Since 1995, he has been Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Studies at the University of Chicago.