Jose Barrera

About me

I am a senior biostatistician with training in physics (5-year degree) and statistics (3-year degree and 2-year master degree). I am currently working at Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) (former CREAL - Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology), where I have accumulated 11 years of experience in statistics applied to epidemiology. I collaborate in several research programs (mainly cancer, respiratory diseases, children health, air pollution, radiation and statistical methodology). I perform statistical data analyses under different study designs such as cohorts, case-control, cross-sectional or case-crossover, as well as simulation studies. At a methodological level, I have been working in some problems such as, for example, the integration of multiple imputation technique in cluster analysis, the interpretation of and software implementation for regression models with transformed variables, the assessment of interactions in the exposome-health association, or the design of observational longitudinal studies. I also provide statistical supervisision to other statisticians, technicians, and PhD and MSc students. I have authored more than 20 papers in international journals, 3 of them as first author. I have also created 4 R packages and a web-app in R-shiny.

I am also interested in teaching. I am Associate Lecturer at the Department of Mathematics at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona where I am responsible for the implementation and teaching of two subjects on applications of statistics in the health sciences, in the degree of Applied Statistics, where I also have supervised a number of bachelor and master degree theses.

Previously, I was working for 14 years as mathematics teacher in high school, after having obtained a civil servant position for the Spanish Administration. I am in leave position from 2009.

Education

• M.Sc. in Statistics and Operational Research (Universitat de Barcelona - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 2012). (thesis here, in Spanish)

• B.Sc. in Statistics (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2007).

• B.Sc. in Physics (Universitat de Barcelona, 1994).

Professional experience

• Statistician at ISGlobal (former CREAL) since October 2009.

• Associate Lecturer at Department of Mathematics, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona since February 2008.

• External collaborator in UAB Statistics Service since 2012.

• Freelance statistical consultant since 2007.

• Secondary school mathematics teacher as civil servant of the Spanish Administration since September 1995. I am in leave position since September 2009. Personal website.