Background: Dr. LaValley was a budding statistician at Penn State University in State College, Pa., using standard survival analysis skills to study the stars when he stumbled into rheumatology.
“My advisor suggested I look into the applications of this in health, as well, because there weren’t really all that many positions open as a statistician to astronomers,” Dr. LaValley recalls. “So I did a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard School of Public Health, where I started working with health data. And I never left.”
In 1995, he joined Boston University Arthritis Center as a biostatistician and the Boston University School of Public Health as an assistant professor of biostatistics. That was 35 full semesters ago. Now he’s a full professor, and three years ago, he added the title of research director of the Center for Enhancing Activity and Participation among Persons with Arthritis (ENACT) at Boston University to his list. He has served on the ARHP’s Research Committee and the ACR Subcommittee on Clinical Research.
Q: What satisfaction have you gotten from working on rheumatologic issues?
A: I work with a lot of rheumatologists who deal with osteoarthritis, which is very common and very prevalent. It’s very satisfying to work on that because it’s such a common condition. Any small advance can really change a lot of people’s lives. But, I also work with people who look at rare rheumatologic conditions. I’m working with Alfred Mahr in France, who’s looking at Behçet’s Disease, which isn’t very prevalent, at least in the United States. It’s a totally different set of challenges, partly because it’s so rare it’s difficult to study. I think there are a lot of interesting challenges in various aspects to rheumatology.
Q: When you made the decision to go into the School of Public Health, did you see yourself staying in that niche forever?
A: At the time, we were all warned as graduate students that it’s unlikely you’ll get a lifetime job; you’re going to have to move around a bit, maybe you’re going to be in academia or maybe in companies. I’ve been extremely fortunate that things have worked out so well for me. I really haven’t had to move around. I’ve been able to work with a lot of people and do interesting things as well as teach, and I think I’d really miss the teaching if I were to go somewhere where there was no teaching.
