The Division of Biostatistics was formed in 1993 as one of three division of the Health Policy Institute. At that time the Division consisted of Prof. John Klein as director who came to MCW from The Ohio State University, Professor Raymond Hoffmann, who was the only statistician in the Division of Clinical Biostatistics, Professor Tim McAullife who had been the MCW cancer center statistician and Professor Mei-Jie Zhang who was visiting the International Bone Marrow Transplant Unit. The Division has since grown to eight full time faculty with the addition of Prakash Laud in 1994, Brent Logan in 2001, and Tao Wang in 2002, Sergey Tarima 2005, and Aniko Szabo in 2007. Professor McAullife has since moved to the Department of Psychology and with Dan Rowe in Biophysics and Pippa Simpson in Pediatrics now holds a secondary appointment in the Division.
In 1994 the Division started offering a terminal masters degree program in Biostatistics replacing the old masters in clinical biostatistics. The first graduate of this program was in 1995. Since its inception there have been 12 graduates of this program.
In 1996 a PhD program in Biostatistics was approved for study. This program combines theoretical work in statistical methods with applied experience in collaborative work. It is a joint effort with the statisticians in the Department of Mathematics at UWM. In 2001 the first two degrees were awarded in this program.