The University of Iowa College of Public Health is pleased to announce the appointment of Christopher Coffey, professor of biostatistics, as the Edwin B. Green Chair in Public Health. Coffey will hold the endowed chair for a five-year term, which may be renewed.

Coffey directs the Clinical Trials Statistical and Data Management Center (CTSDMC) in the College of Public Health. He has more than 25 years of experience providing data management and statistical support for clinical trials and other health-related studies to inform health care development and treatment. His research has addressed multiple conditions, including Huntington’s disease, hypertension, multiple sclerosis, obesity, Parkinson’s disease, stroke, and traumatic brain injury.

Coffey serves as the principal investigator of the Data Coordinating Center for the Network for Excellence in Neuroscience Clinical Trials, co-principal investigator of the Clinical Coordinating Center for the Acute to Chronic Pain Signatures program, and head of the Statistics Core for the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative. He has published extensively in the areas of adaptive designs and general clinical trial design. He is as a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology, the American Statistical Association, and the Society for Clinical Trials.

In 2018, Coffey was selected as the College of Public Health Distinguished Faculty Lecturer. In spring 2024, Coffey was one of two faculty members chosen as University of Iowa Presidential Lecturers.

“Dr. Coffey is recognized not only as a distinguished academic researcher in his discipline, but also a willing and innovative collaborator, and a leading advocate for new partnerships, tools, and infrastructure to support continued advancements in the clinical trials environment,” says Edith Parker, professor and dean of the UI College of Public Health. “We are proud of the significant contributions that Chris and his team have made to understanding and addressing conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, and look forward to further breakthroughs from his groundbreaking scholarship and research portfolio.”

Coffey received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Tennessee and a master’s degree and PhD in biostatistics from the University of North Carolina. He previously held faculty appointments at Vanderbilt University and the University of Alabama prior to joining the University of Iowa in 2009.

The Edwin B. Green Chair honors University of Iowa alumnus Edwin Green. The chair is supported by income from the permanent Edwin B. Green Endowment Fund. Although he received a BA in journalism in 1929, Green was a long-time supporter of the arts, the medical community, and his own field, journalism. His generosity also has impacted UI endowed professorships and fellowships, University Libraries, Iowa Hall in the Museum of Natural History, and scholarships to help school children attend educational and recreational programs and summer camps. After graduating from the UI, he joined The Iowa City Press-Citizen, later serving as managing editor for 32 years until his retirement in 1966. Green died in 1988.