Research Themes

Biostatistics

Qualifications

BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD

Prof Gillian Heller

Professor of Biostatistics

Professor Gillian Heller joined the CTC as Professor of Biostatistics in 2020, in a part-time capacity. She coordinates the consulting and outreach activities of the biostatistics group, and is involved in design and analysis across multiple trials. 

From 2014 to 2019, Gillian was Chair of the Biostatistics Collaboration of Australia, a multi-institutional body that offers a postgraduate program in Biostatistics, across Australia.  She has over 30 years of experience as a biostatistician and academic statistician, most recently as Professor of Statistics at Macquarie University.

 

Books

  1. Rigby RA, Stasinopoulos MD, Heller GZ, De Bastiani F (2019). Distributions for Modeling Location, Scale and Shape: Using GAMLSS in R. CRC Press. https://www.crcpress.com/Distributions-for-Modeling-Location-Scale-and-Shape-Using-GAMLSS-in-R/Rigby-Stasinopoulos-Heller-Bastiani/p/book/9780367278847

  2. Stasinopoulos MD, Rigby RA, Heller GZ, Voudouris V, De Bastiani F (2017). Flexible Regression and Smoothing: Using GAMLSS in R. CRC Press. https://www.crcpress.com/Flexible-Regression-and-Smoothing-Using-GAMLSS-in-R/Stasinopoulos-Rigby-Heller-Voudouris-Bastiani/p/book/9781138197909

  3. De Jong, P, Heller GZ (2008). Generalized Linear Models for Insurance Data. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/generalized-linear-models-for-insurance-data/851EB0898C6C7DB4FEA2D542371145C2

 

Refereed journal articles (last 5 years)

  1. Thirumaran AJ, Murphy NJ, Eyles JP, Linklater JM, Reichenbach S, Schmaranzer F, Lerch TD, Venkatesha V, Heller G, O'Donnell J, Hunter DJ (2022). Do patients with femoroacetabular impingement syndrome who undergo hip arthroscopy display improved alpha angle (magnetic resonance imaging) and radiographic hip morphology? International Journal of Rheumatic Diseases. 2022; 00: 1- 6. doi:10.1111/1756-185X.14530
  2. Hunter, D.J., Bowden, J.L., Hinman, R.S., Egerton, T., Briggs, A.M., Bunker, S.J., French, S.D., Pirotta, M., Shrestha, R., Schofield, D.J., Schuck, K., Zwar, N.A., Silva, S.S.M., Heller, G.Z., Bennell, K.L. (2022). Effectiveness of a new service delivery model for management of knee osteoarthritis in primary care: a cluster randomised controlled trial. Arthritis Care and Research. https://doi.org/10.1002/acr.25037
  3. De Bastiani F, Stasinopoulos DM, Rigby RA, Heller GZ, Silva LA (2022). Bucket plot: A visual tool for skewness and kurtosis comparisons. Brazilian Journal of Probability and Statistics, 36(3), 421-440. https://doi.org/10.1214/22-BJPS533
  4. Grant SJ, Spiegel G, Brand A, et al. (2022). Acupuncture and Reflexology for Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy: A Cohort Study. Integrative Cancer Therapies. 2022;21. doi:10.1177/15347354221123055
  5. Khanani, H., McClintock, G., Fernando, H., Heller, G., Asher, R., Garcia, C., Smith, D. P., Getley, I., Ahmadi, N., Doeuk, N., Leslie, S., Thanigasalam, N., & Woo, H. H. (2022). Incidence and Mortality of Prostate Cancer in Commercial Airline Cockpit Crew: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Société Internationale d’Urologie Journal3(3), 145-162. https://doi.org/10.48083/10.48083/PDKF1241
  6. Duong V, Dennis S, Ferreira ML, Heller G, Nicolson PJ, Robbins SR, Wang X, Hunter DJ (2022). Predictors of adherence to a step count intervention following total knee replacement: an exploratory cohort study. Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy. Jul 9(0):1-25.
  7. Hurrell, M.J.L., Heller, G.Z., Elliott, M.S. et al. (2022). Recursive Partitioning to Determine Order of Significance of Regional Metastasis Characteristics in Head and Neck Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Annals of Surgical Oncology, 29, 6991-6999.https://doi.org/10.1245/s10434-022-11863-z
  8. Connolly, E.A., Weickhardt, A., Grimison, P., Asher, R., Heller, G.Z., Lewin, J., Liow, E., Toner, G., Tung, I.L., Tran, B., Hill, S., Walpole, E., McKenzie, J., Kuchel, A., Goh, J., Forgeson, G., Tan, A., Joshi, A., Wickham, A., Tan, H., Wang, Y., Winstanley, M.A., Hamad, N. and Wong, V. (2022). High-dose chemotherapy for relapsed germ cell tumours: outcomes in low-volume specialized centres. BJU International. https://doi.org/10.1111/bju.15648
  9. Heller, G.Z., Robledo, K.P. and Marschner, I.C. (2022). Distributional regression in clinical trials: treatment effects on parameters other than the mean. BMC Medical Research Methodology 22, 56. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-022-01534-8
  10. Lawless AK,  Fangupo N, Estoesta RP,  Perez G, Alzaidi S, Heller G, Hill R, Hong AM (2022). Dosimetric Comparison of VMAT and IMRT Pre-Operative Radiotherapy for Soft Tissue Sarcoma of the Extremities, Practical Radiation Oncology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prro.2022.02.013.
  11. Liebert, A., Bicknell, B., Laakso, E.L., Heller, G., Jalilitabaei, P., Tilley, S., Mitrofanis, J. and Kiat, H., 2021. Improvements in clinical signs of Parkinson’s disease using photobiomodulation: A prospective proof-of-concept study. BMC Neurology, 21:256. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12883-021-02248-y
  12. Dean, C, Clemson, L, Ada, L, Scrivener, K, Lannin, N, Mikolaizak, S, Day, S, Cusick, A, Gardner, B, Heller, G, Isbel, S, Jones, T., Mumford, V., & Preston, E. (2021). Home-based, tailored intervention for reducing falls after stroke (FAST): Protocol for a randomized trial. International Journal of Strokehttps://doi.org/10.1177/1747493021991990
  13. Naidu SL, Heller G, Deakin L, Naidu J, Tukana I, Nakalevu S, Baseisei M, Daivalu A, Gyaneshwar R (2020). Baseline Knowledge, Attitude, Practice and Barriers (KAPB) Regarding Lifestyle Risk Factors for Non Communicable Diseases in Ba Province, Fiji. Fiji Medical Journal, 24(3), 85-93.
  14. Karin E, Crane MF, Dear BF, Nielssen O, Heller GZ, Kayrouz R, Titov N (2020). Predictors, Outcomes, and Statistical Solutions of Missing Cases in Web-Based Psychotherapy: Methodological Replication and Elaboration Study. JMIR Mental Health. 13/12/2020:22700 (forthcoming/in press) doi: 10.2196/22700;  https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/22700
  15. Almeida, LR, Heller, G, Allen, NE, Canning, CG, Sherrington, C, Valença, GT, Oliveira-Filho, J and Paul, SS (2020). Predicting falls in people with Parkinson’s disease: impact of methodological approaches on predictors identified. Aging clinical and experimental research, 32(6), 1057-1066.
  16. Manuguerra M, Heller GZ, Ma J (2020). Continuous Ordinal Regression for Analysis of Visual Analogue Scales: The R Package ordinalCont, Journal of Statistical Software,96(1), 1-25.
  17. Morgan MK, Guilfoyle M, Kirollos R, Heller GZ (2019). Remodeling of the Feeding Arterial System After Surgery for Resection of Brain Arteriovenous Malformations: An Observational Study, Neurosurgery, Volume 84, Issue 1, Pages 84–94. https://doi.org/10.1093/neuros/nyy007
  18. Morgan MK, O'Donnell JM, Heller GZ, Rogers JM (2018). Comparing outcome scales for unruptured intracranial aneurysms: A prospective cohort study, Journal of Clinical Neuroscience, 58, 56-63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocn.2018.10.064
  19. Heller GZ, Couturier D-L, Heritier SR (2019). Beyond Mean Modelling: Bias due to Misspecification of Dispersion in Poisson-inverse Gaussian Regression, Biometrical Journal, 61:333–342. https://doi.org/10.1002/bimj.201700218
  20. Karin E, Dear BF, Heller GZ, Crane MF, Titov N (2018). “Wish You Were Here”: Examining Characteristics, Outcomes, and Statistical Solutions for Missing Cases in Web-Based Psychotherapeutic Trials,  JMIR Mental Health 2018;5(2):e22. DOI: 10.2196/mental.8363
  21. Karin E, Dear BF, Heller GZ, Gandy M, Titov N (2018). Measurement of symptom change following web based psychotherapy – statistical characteristics and analytical methods for measuring and interpreting change. JMIR Mental Health, 5(3), e10200. 
  22. Morgan MK, Heller GZ (2018). The role of embolization before surgery for Spetzler-Ponce Class B and C brain AVMs: a prospective cohort series. Journal of Neurosurgical Sciences, 62(4):429-36.