Loni Philip Tabb
Dr. Loni Philip Tabb is an Associate Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health in Philadelphia, PA. She received her PhD in Biostatistics from Harvard University in 2010 where she developed novel statistical methods to address zero inflation in longitudinal count data – with applications to environmental health and health disparities research. More specifically, she developed a marginalized zero-altered Poisson model to map and measure premature mortality and the effect of census tract poverty in the greater Boston area. Upon completion of this doctoral training, she returned as a tenure-track faculty member to her undergraduate and graduate alma mater – she obtained her B.S. (2003) and M.S. (2005) in Mathematics from Drexel.
Since her arrival at Drexel University, she has collaborated as a Co-Investigator on several National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center funded projects. These projects range from extending her doctoral work with zero inflation in genome sequencing data to her work on examining the spatial distribution of alcohol outlets in Philadelphia. In 2013, she was awarded as the Principal Investigator (PI) of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Connections grant for Junior Investigators, entitled “Examining the impact on alcohol-related violence of increased liquor outlets under privatization of sales”.
As a tenured Associate Professor of Biostatistics, Dr. Tabb uses spatial statistics and epidemiology methods in the area of cardiovascular disease, with a focus on assessing the geographic patterning of cardiovascular health here in the US between blacks and whites. She was awarded a K01 Career Development Award (2017) from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, entitled “Assessing the spatial heterogeneity in cardiovascular risk factors within and between blacks and whites”. As the PI of this grant, Dr. Tabb has mapped and measured the varying disparities locally in major cities as well as nationally, with hopes of providing this evidence to inform policy makers, health officials, and the communities affected in improving cardiovascular health disparities in this country.
Dr. Tabb has also taught several courses at Drexel, which include Biostatistics, Survival Data Analysis, Advanced Statistical Computing, and Bayesian Data Analysis. In addition to her in-classroom instruction, Dr. Tabb mentors significantly, both formally and informally. Her formal advising includes mentoring students in various programs within the School of Public Health and across Drexel University, including: MS and PhD Biostatistics; MPH and PhD Epidemiology; DrPH Health Management and Policy; PhD Community Health; and PhD Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science. Her goal with mentoring is to “pay-it-forward” and to help connect mentees and mentors alike.
Dr. Tabb is an active member of several biostatistics and public health professional societies – including current co-chair of the Fostering Diversity in Biostatistics Workshop for the Eastern North American Region of the International Biometric Society annual Spring Meetings.
Dr. Tabb is a first-generation scholar, and daughter to immigrant parents, Garfield (Grenada) and Patsie Philip (St. Vincent and the Grenadines). Her West Indian upbringing is at the core of her career and personal development. She lives in Delaware with her husband, Thomas Tabb, Jr., and two children, Madison (8) and Chandler (5).