sCIENCE THESIS
SCIENCE DISSERTATION
SCIENCE CAPSTONE PROJECT

VALRIE ANN GERARD, M.A., Ph.D.
Content Editor/Writer: Science and Medicine

Scope:  biology, botany, chemistry, ecology, environmental policy, environmental science, evolutionary biology, geography, geology, marine science, mathematical modeling, medicine, oceanography, physiology, veterinary medicine, zoology, and related scientific fields.

Academic Editing/Writing Experience:

• Science and medical editor and writer since 2001.
• Specializes in organization, interpretation, and clear presentation of complex information.
• Helps clients (including non-native English speakers) improve their writing skills for future projects.
• Past and current clients from Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Columbia, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Patagonia, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Thailand, Uganda, the U.K., the U.S., and Venezuela.
• More than fifty publications and one million dollars worth of successful grant proposals.
• Over thirty years of teaching experience, including scientific writing courses.
• Served as advisor and/or mentor to many graduate and undergraduate students.
• Past experience as associate editor and/or reviewer for over two dozen scientific journals, including Science, and government funding agencies.

Provides fast turnaround.
Helps you submit your dissertation, thesis, proposal, or project on time.

Graduate students:  Many students who fail to finish their degrees quit in the writing phase.  Don’t become a “dissertation dropout”!  

• Get help with the thesis/dissertation proposal stage -  Val provides help with your proposal, including literature review and research plan. 
• Get help with methods, data interpretation and presentation – Val specializes in helping you write clear, concise, and accurate Methods and Results sections, and in designing figures and tables.
• Get help writing the final thesis/dissertation – Val shows you how to organize your material, including your Literature Review and Discussion, and polishes your writing.
• Get help with revisions – Val helps you make changes in response to comments by your advisor and committee members.
• Get help with the defense – Val can help you prepare your presentation, and will provide you with practice sessions if desired.
• Get help with publications – Val will guide you through the manuscript preparation process and help you get your work published.

Undergraduate students:  Most students do not take any writing courses beyond English 101.  Term papers and theses can be major hurdles in completing your degree.  Don’t trip over those hurdles!

• Get help with science projects – Val can help you design your project and interpret the data.
• Get help with term papers – Val provides assistance with term papers, helping you improve the organization and writing.
• Get help with your thesis – Val can help you organize and write an undergraduate thesis.

Dr. Sarah H.

STATISTICAL GENETICIST
Quantitative Genetics
Genetic Epidemiology
Genotypic and Haplotype Tests
Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium
Genome-Wide Association Studies
Golden Helix
R Statistics – R Programming

Dr. Sara H. specializes in the analysis of genetic, biological, experimental, and clinical data. She is accomplished in the areas of statistical genetics, quantitative genetics, bioinformatics and biostatistics. Dr. Sara H. was trained in mathematics and biology (BA), statistics (MA), and genetics (Ph.D.). She worked as a statistical geneticist for The Rockefeller University in the Laboratory of Statistical Genetics, with Allan Award winner Dr. Jurg Ott. She works with researchers and clinicians from Baylor College of Medicine, Rockefeller University, and Casey Eye Institute.

For medical researchers and clinicians …
She crafts statistical analyses targeted to specific hypotheses and determines which statistics would best be applied to the biological questions. Working with a variety of scientists, she has contributed to the publication of over 35 peer-reviewed publications and research abstracts within the last five years. She has publications within the areas of heart disease, age-related macular degeneration, and drug addiction.

For graduate students in biology, genetics, bioinformatics, and biostatistics …
Sara teaches basic statistics courses as well as statistics courses specific to human genetics, and was formally trained as a statistical geneticist. As a statistical geneticist in a department of primarily molecular biologists, she developed an ability to communicate complex mathematical concepts clearly to both students and fellow scientists. With her combined training in both genetic epidemiology and statistical genetics, she has expertise in analyzing genetic data. Her Ph.D. thesis explored the role of context dependency and interaction in human genetics.

Summary …
She helps select and/or perform the proper statistical analyses for genetic, biological, and clinical data. She helps develop meaningful hypotheses with statistical analyses that reflect the biological questions being asked. She recognizes issues specific to biological and genetic data and understands how they may influence statistical analyses. As a medical communications consultant, she helps communicate research results in publications, presentations, and posters. Her purpose is not just to produce results, but to relate them understandably. She assists in the design of research studies or--if the research design is complete--performs the data analyses. She will work with you throughout the process to ensure that your questions are answered. She will either assist you in doing your own analyses or perform the analyses for you with a written report of the results. She has experience in writing grants, papers and presentations, both as a supporting statistician and as a first author. She also has experience teaching statistics and statistical genetics, and is available to provide consultation and statistical support to trainees on research projects. She can assist you in documenting the statistical methods used in the data analysis, in producing clean and comprehensible graphs and tables, in preparing bibliographic entries relevant to the statistical analysis, and in manuscript content drafting and review.
Sara H. also has expertise in both observational data (cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of patients and population studies of individuals) and experimental data (rats, mice, cell lines). Sara can help with issues such as linkage disequilibrium, inter-relatedness, and context-dependent effects.

Areas of advanced expertise: programming in R, genetic analysis of related individuals (e.g., generalized estimating equations, family-based association tests), genetic analysis of unrelated individuals (e.g., t-tests, analysis of variance, chi-square tests, logistic regression, genotypic and haplotype tests, Genome-wide association studies (GWAS), next generation sequencing analysis, interaction analyses (GXG, GXE, EXE)), and fitting data to the underlying assumptions (e.g., linkage disequilibrium, Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, tests of normality, transformation of data), as well as traditional statistical analyses including, but not limited to, ANOVA, longitudinal analysis, survival analysis, linear regression, meta-analysis, power analysis, permutation testing, and various methods of correction for multiple testing.

All analyses are performed in R or using statistical genetics software such as Golden Helix. This allows her to deal with the large amounts of data being produced in the area of genetics, such as the million marker chips.

Additional information >>

Science Education Resources

Innovations in SMET Education contains a wealth of information about collaborative learning and instructional technology, and a field-tested assessment guide. It was created by the National Institute for Science Education at the University of Wisconsin.