Joseph Cavanaugh, professor and head of the Department of Biostatistics in the College of Public Health, is one of six outstanding University of Iowa faculty members selected by the Board of Regents, State of Iowa, to be honored for their extraordinary contributions and sustained record of excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service. Each recipient of the 2023 Regents Award for Faculty Excellence received a $1,500 stipend and will be honored at an awards celebration during the June Board of Regents meeting on the UI campus.

The recipients were selected by committees appointed by shared governance in collaboration with the UI administration and confirmed by the Board of Regents.

Cavanaugh is a methodological and collaborative researcher who leverages his expertise in statistics and biostatistics to investigate a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary topics. He has published more than 170 peer-reviewed manuscripts and has made particularly important contributions in the areas of statistical model selection, time series analysis, infectious diseases epidemiology, and injury prevention. He played a significant role in the state of Iowa’s COVID-19 response, leading a team that partnered with the Iowa Department of Public Health to analyze data and develop predictive models to help the state respond to the pandemic.

He has supervised 19 doctoral dissertations and 39 master’s projects, and is active in service to the department, college, university, and profession. His efforts to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion within the Department of Biostatistics recently helped the department earn recognition from the American Statistical Association. He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute and a fellow of the American Statistical Association, and has received numerous teaching and mentoring awards, including the UI Hancher-Finkbine Medallion, the College of Public Health Faculty Teaching Award, and the College of Public Health Faculty Mentor Award.