Meet Leif Verace, a biostatistics PhD student, identical twin, and proud Midwesterner. His research focuses on analyzing health data through wearable devices and finding biomarkers to better understand complex health conditions.

Where did you grow up? Where did you attend undergrad, and what was your degree/area of study?
“I grew up in Rockford, IL, a mid-sized city west of Chicago. I attended Northern Illinois University for undergrad, where I majored in biology and computational mathematics.”

What was the moment in your life when you decided you wanted to study public health?
“It wasn’t until my final year of undergrad that I discovered biostatistics. I was instantly intrigued because it combined my skills in biology and mathematics with my interest in public health. Public health stood out because it allows us to make a tremendous impact on the health and well-being of our communities.”

What specific area of research in public health do you care the most about, and why?
“I’m interested in two main areas: analyzing data from wearable devices and using high-dimensional statistics to find biomarkers for complex medical conditions. Wearable devices like smartwatches collect continuous health data, which is useful but difficult to analyze. Finding biomarkers for conditions such as COPD and Alzheimer’s also requires working with large, complicated datasets. By developing new statistical methods in these areas, I hope to help improve our understanding of these diseases that affect millions of people.”

Can you tell us about some of the research you’ve conducted?
My research began as an applied project to reanalyze a dataset my advisor, Assistant Professor Erjia Cui, wanted to explore. As I worked on building a statistical model, I encountered computational limitations in existing methods, so I developed an alternative approach that performs much faster with large sample sizes. 

I submitted a paper on the project to a competition at the ENAR Spring Meeting, a yearly biostatistics conference, and received the Van Ryzin Award for the top paper, which was exciting.”

Why did you choose to come to the School of Public Health?
“I was inspired by the wide range of research topics at SPH and within the Division of Biostatistics & Health Data Science. I was also excited about living in the Twin Cities. I had never lived in a major metropolitan area before, so I was eager to move here.”

What do you like about living in Minnesota?
“I’m from the Midwest and enjoy its general atmosphere and culture. I really like the parks in Minnesota. The park system in Minneapolis is extensive, with the riverfront and all the lakes, and the city does a great job maintaining those spaces. And to be honest, I like the winter. It’s an interesting contrast to have a bustling city that also has abundant ice fishing and outdoor hockey rinks.”

What do you like to do when you’re not in class?
“Recently, I’ve enjoyed biking around Minneapolis; there are lots of great bike trails in the Twin Cities. I’ve also been getting into hockey because it’s a really fun sport that’s deeply ingrained in Minnesota’s culture. I’ve been improving my ice skating, but I have a lot of catching up to do compared to most Minnesotans.”

What is something about you that might surprise people?
“I have an identical twin brother who is also a PhD student. He’s studying physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. We’re very supportive of each other, and it’s nice that we can connect over our similar experiences.”