The American Statistical Association (ASA) has named three recipients of its prestigious Founders Award this year: Dr. Alexandra Hanlon of Virginia Tech, Dr. Donna LaLonde of the ASA, and Dr. Cyndy Long of the Palmer College of Chiropractic. The Founders Award is among the ASA’s highest honors, recognizing sustained leadership, service, and contributions that strengthen both the discipline and the broader statistical community.

Dr. Alexandra Hanlon’s recognition reflects a career defined by advancing statistics through collaboration, mentorship, and service. Her contributions to the ASA include leadership and committee engagement aimed at expanding the reach and impact of statistical science across disciplines, while fostering a more connected and inclusive professional community.

At Virginia Tech, Dr. Hanlon is a faculty member in the Department of Statistics and the founder and director of the Center for Biostatistics and Health Data Science, established in 2019 after joining from the University of Pennsylvania, where she had founded and led a similar collaborative center. The Center reflects the same values that define her professional service: bringing statisticians into meaningful partnership with researchers to ensure rigor, strong study design, and impactful outcomes.

The Center collaborates widely across Virginia Tech and beyond, working with faculty, students, staff, other academic institutions, and industry partners. Its work spans the full lifecycle of research, including grant development, study design, data analysis, data management, and co-authorship of scientific publications. The team also develops dashboards and tools that translate complex data into accessible, actionable insights, with expertise that includes bioinformatics and interdisciplinary health research.

Mentorship is central to this work. Dr. Hanlon serves on doctoral and thesis committees and actively mentors junior faculty and staff, preparing them to be effective collaborators in team-based science. This commitment extends to training initiatives such as CUBE, which has grown from her biostatistics teaching over the past 15 years into a structured program at Virginia Tech, focused on developing both technical skills and collaborative capacity in data-driven research.

As research becomes increasingly data-intensive, the importance of statisticians as integral members of interdisciplinary teams continues to grow. Early and sustained engagement ensures thoughtful design, appropriate methodology, and reliable conclusions. The model advanced through Dr. Hanlon’s work at Virginia Tech reflects this principle in practice, aligning closely with her contributions to the profession through the ASA.

Recognition with the ASA Founders Award brings this work full circle. It highlights not only Dr. Hanlon’s individual leadership and service but also the broader impact of a collaborative, partnership-driven approach to statistics. The Department of Statistics and the Center for Biostatistics and Health Data Science at Virginia Tech continue to offer that model to partners seeking to strengthen their research through rigor, insight, and meaningful collaboration.