Adam Kaplan

Ph.D., Biostatistics, University of Minnesota, 2021

M.S., Biostatistics, University of Minnesota, 2017

B.A., Mathematics, University of Kansas, 2015

Research Interests: Multi-source high dimensional data with prediction, Statistical Genomics, Adaptive Trials for Medical Devices, Imaging Genetics, Bayesian Modeling, Epidemiology, Infectious Disease Modeling

AFCH Advisors: David Nelson, Siamak Noorbaloochi , Brent Taylor

Ph.D. Advisors: Eric Lock, Mark Fiecas, Thomas Murray

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I grew up in Wichita, KS and attended the University of Kansas intentionally double majoring in Mathematics and Arab/Islamic studies. I studied Arabic for three years. As time progressed, I focused more on mathematics but my enjoyment from speaking the Arabic language did not dissipate.

During my Master's degree, I studied under Eric Lock working on multi-omic data integration. Then once admitted for the Ph.D. program, Mark Fiecas joined and motivated me to integrate genetic data with brain imaging data. However, we focused primarily on how to incorporate genetic variant level information, such as is it coding or not and what gene it is assigned to, in the estimation of its association with disease status. My second dissertation piece was a joint effort with Thomas Murray on a Bayesian Adaptive Clinical trial framework that evaluates the best setting for a particular participant of a medical device that has hundreds or thousands of configurations. Finally, my third dissertation piece introduced a novel shrinkage method that allowed for a given genetic variant's type of relationship with an outcome (e.g., recessive vs. linear) be influenced by its neighbor's type of relationship. This genetic fine mapping strategy would be used after a genome-wide association analysis. All three of these projects concerned high-dimensional problems (P >> N) and used shrinkage methods to attend to this issue.

I also have a passion for teaching. In the Spring of 2019, I taught at St. Thomas as an adjunct faculty member for their Introduction to Statistics course lab, pairing up data visualization and computing under the JMP data manipulation language. Following this, I taught a Data Visualization and Data Manipulation Using R Workshop in the Mulago hospital, situated in Kampala, Uganda. Working with and teaching doctors, nurses, data managers, and lab technicians was a lot of fun and I hope to do this again. While in Kampala, I also did research under Dr. David Boulware in modeling fungal activity over time for patients that have the morbid combination of cryptococcal meningitis and HIV, using Bayesian software and modeling techniques.

Currently, I am finishing a Post-Doctoral position at the Centers for Care Delivery and Outcomes Research in the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. My position has led me to join various non-genetics projects, such as evaluating what types of patients benefit or worsen from psychotherapies for post-traumatic stress disorder, and using chained imputation equations in a Bayesian paradigm to evaluate the relationship between knowledge and use of electronic phone applications in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to encourage abstaining from tobacco smoking. Of high interest to me is promoting and using Bayesian methods that can accommodate to the complexity of the VAHC data. For instance, using Bayesian semi-parametric clustering methods to identify patients sharing similar experiences in psychotherapies for PTSD and then using these groups as per-session effects in a time-till-dropout from therapy model. The coolest theoretical work I am working on is investigating the odd estimation behavior of generalized linear mixed modeling with binary outcomes; these models are routinely used in VAHC to identify hierarchical effects on patient health (e.g., therapist, clinic site, etc.). These models often provide zero between-group variance estimates which clinically are not useable; my current endeavors are on providing rationale and alternative methods for these issues.

Outside of school, I attempt to keep up my passion for music by practicing piano. I also enjoy running, soccer, and tennis for outdoor activities, and inside you may find me reading, writing, or attempting to cook Ethiopian dishes.

Publications

Rosen, C. S., Kaplan, A. N., Nelson, D. B., La Bash, H., Chard, K. M., Eftekhari, A., ... & Sayer, N. A. (2022). Implementation context and burnout among Department of Veterans Affairs psychotherapists prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Affective Disorders.

Khan, M., Stone, A., Soose, R. J., Cohen, S. M., Howard, J., Capasso, R., …, Kaplan, A. & Ni, Q. (2022). Does race-ethnicity affect upper airway stimulation adherence and treatment outcome of obstructive sleep apnea?.Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, jcsm-10068.

Wang, D., Modik, O., Sturm, J. J., Metkus, J., Oaks-Leaf, R., Kaplan, A., ... & Suurna, M. (2022). Neurophysiological profiles of responders and nonresponders to hypoglossal nerve stimulation: a single-institution study. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 18(5), 1327-1333.

Bearrick, E.N., Dixon, C., Kaplan, A., O’Brien, S., Radosevich. D., Tejpaul, R., Lewis, J., Referral Patterns for Undescended Testis: A 7 Year Comparative Analysis of Primary Care Providers, Journal of Pediatric Urology, 2021

Kaplan A, Young JH, et al., "Long-Term Infectious and Noninfectious Outcomes of Monthly Alemtuzumab as a Calcineurin Inhibitor- and Steroid-Free Regimen for Pancreas Transplant Recipients," Can J Infect Dis Med Microbiol, 2020.

Adam Kaplan, Thomas A. Murray, "Batch Bayesian Optimization Design for Optimizing a Neurostimulator," Biometrics, 2020.

Adam Kaplan, Eric F. Lock, Mark Fiecas, "Bayesian GWAS with Structured and Non-Local Priors," Bioinformatics, 2019.

Brian Sandri, Adam Kaplan et al., "Multi-Omic Molecular Profiling of Lung Cancer Risk in COPD Patients," European Respiratory Journal, 2018.

Kaplan A., Lock E.F. (2017) "Prediction with Dimension Reduction of Multiple Molecular Data Sources for Patient Survival". Cancer Informatics. 2017:16

Presentations

"Batch Bayesian Optimization for Optimizing a Neurostimulator," Joint Statistical Meeting, Washington D.C., August 2022.

"Multi-Omic Molecular Profiling of Lung Cancer Risk in COPD Patients," Infectious Disease Institute, Statistical Department, Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda, June 27th 2019.