Iuliana Ionita-Laza joined Columbia University in 2009, where she is currently an associate professor of biostatistics. Ionita-Laza’s research area is at the interface between statistics and genomics, with emphasis on the development of statistical and computational methods for problems arising in human genomics. Particular interests include the development of methods for sequence data with family-based or population-based designs, and integrative statistical methods for different types of omics data. In addition to her methodological component, she is also involved in the application of these methods to sequencing studies for autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, alopecia areata and kidney disease. Ionita-Laza received her PhD from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU in 2006, and subsequently was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biostatistics at Harvard University. She is currently an associate editor for Biometrics, and Statistics in Biosciences, and serves on the Section of Statistics in Genomics and Genetics of the American Statistical Association.