Sandra Safo

Sandra Safo is an Associate Professor in the Division of Biostatistics and Health Data Science within the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota. She serves as Graduate Faculty in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and Data Science.

Education:

• PhD in Statistics, University of Georgia, 2014
• MSc in Applied Mathematics, The University of Akron, 2009
• BA in Mathematics and Economics, University of Ghana, 2006

Research Interests: Dr. Safo develops robust, explainable statistical and machine learning methods for high-dimensional data including multivariate analysis, integrative multi-omics data fusion, discriminant analysis, classification, clustering, and functional data analysis. Her applied work focuses on cardiovascular diseases in HIV populations, diabetes complications, and metabolomics with emphasis on social determinants of health.

Scientific Awards and Recognition:

• COPSS Emerging Leader Award, 2024
• McKnight Land-Grant Professor, 2023-2025
• NIH ESI Outstanding Award, 2021-2026
• International Statistical Institute Member, 2022
• NIH ASPA Standing Member, 2022-2026
• UMN CTSI KL2 Scholar, 2018-2021
• BIRCWH Scholar, Emory University, 2016-2017
• PRIDE Scholar, Washington University, 2016-2018

Grants and Leadership: Principal Investigator on NIH Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA R35), Administrative Supplements from NIA and Office of Data Science and Strategy, and UMN internal grants. Leads development of the Integrative Modeling Dashboard for multi-view data analysis.

Computational Resources: Creator of open-source tools including iDeepViewLearn (interpretable deep learning), DeepIDA-GRU (longitudinal data integration), SIDA (multi-view association studies), and HIP (joint association prediction) available on GitHub.