Brani Vidakovic, Ph.D., a leading expert in wavelets, general Bayesian statistical methodology, statistical modeling and simulation of high frequency data, has been nominated--along with his co-authors--for the 2009 Charles C. Shepard Science Award for the manuscript "The Effectiveness of Sealants in Managing Carious Lesions" (S.O. Griffin, E. Oong, W. Kohn, B. Vidakovic, B.F. Gooch, and CDC Dental Sealant Systematic Review Work Group: J. Bader, J. Clarkson, M.R. Fontana, D.M. Meyer, R.G. Rozier, J.A. Weintraub, and D.T. Zero) in the Assessment & Epidemiology category. The project was lead by Susan Griffin, researcher with the Division of Oral Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Nomination for this prestigious award recognizes not only Dr. Vidakovic's outstanding contribution to public health, but also his dedication and commitment to the CDC/ATDSR mission.

Since 1985, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATDSR) have presented the Charles C. Shepard Science Award to authors of the most outstanding peer-reviewed research papers published by CDC/ATDSR scientists during the preceding year. The award recognizes scientific achievement and honors the memory of Dr. Charles C. Shepard, whose career was marked by the pursuit of academic excellence. In addition to honoring publications in three categories - Assessment and Epidemiology, Prevention and Control, and Laboratory and Methods - there is also an award for Lifetime Scientific Achievement.

Nomination for the Shepard award is, in itself, an honor and the winners for the different categories will not be revealed until the ceremony which takes place June 29, 2009 at the Tom Harkin Global Communications Center on the Roybal Campus at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

MORE ABOUT DR. VIDAKOVIC
Brani Vidakovic is a Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and Director of the Health Systems Institute Center for Biostatistics and Data Management. Dr. Vidakovic came to Georgia Tech from Duke University, where he had been an Assistant Professor and tenured Associate Professor. Dr. Vidakovic holds a Ph.D. in statistics from Purdue University and his research areas include
Bayesian modeling and decision theory, clinical trials, health statistics, wavelets and multiscale modeling, high frequency data modeling, analysis of biomedical signals and images, statistical learning and data mining, and statistics of turbulent flows. He is a Fellow of American Statistical Association, an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute and associate editor for Journal of the American Statistical Association, Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Communications in Statistics, and Bayesian Statistics.