Dr. Lu’s primary research interests include optimal study design and data analysis in longitudinal studies and cluster randomized trials (CRTs). Her research also includes statistical modeling and forecasting of clinical trial recruitment, propensity score methodology, survival data analysis, and prediction models.

Dr. Lu served as a lead biostatistician on many projects including Phase I-IV clinical trials at the Pharmaceutical Product Development Inc. (global contract research organization), which has ensured meeting the regulatory demands of the FDA and submission deadlines of pharmaceutical companies. Since Nov. 2009, She has worked at Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) and collaborated with the world-class faculty, who lead preclinical studies and clinical trials at Siteman Cancer Center (SCC) and across research programs in the Medical School. Dr. Lu is a faculty biostatistician in Biostatistics and Qualitative Research Shared Resource. She provides statistical support at the SCC as a lead faculty biostatistician in the areas of Gastrointestinal, Gynecology, Head and Neck, and Thoracic diseases. Dr. Lu has collaborated with the principal investigators to ensure that final data analyses are conducted rigorously and assist in writing manuscripts describing research findings as well as to support the grant applications through helping study design, calculating sample size, and proposing study analysis methods

Dr. Lu has been involved in four funded Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPOREs) – one in Leukemia (single-institution) as one-project biostatistician, two in Pancreatic cancer (two-institution) as lead faculty biostatistician in the first grant and Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core Director in the renewal grant, and one in Endometrial cancer (three-institution) as lead faculty biostatistician and Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core Director. 

To assure quality of the large multi-center clinical trials, Dr. Lu helps with designing the case report forms (CRFs), reviews the CRFs, builds the REDCap database, monitors data quality weekly (/bi-weekly/monthly), and prepares DSMB reports biannually, as a lead of data coordinating center, as well as provides statistical analysis plans (SAPs). Currently she is a lead faculty biostatistician as a Co-investigator on two multi-center randomized clinical trials (RCTs) outside of WUSM and two CRTs at WUSM. Dr. Lu provides expertise in the data management and apply her research methods of RCTs and CRTs to these trials.

Dr. Lu is available to mentor post-baccalaureate students with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics/Statistics/Biostatistics.