Ralph B. D'Agostino, Sr., is a Professor of Mathematics/Statistics, Public Health and Law at Boston University. His major fields of research are multivariate analysis, longitudinal studies, epidemiology, clinical trials, and outcomes/effectiveness research. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Cardiovascular Epidemiology section of the American Heart Association and twice recipient of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner's Special Citation (1981 and 1995).

He has been affiliated with the Framingham Heart Study since 1981 and is presently Co-Principal Investigator of the core NHLBI contract and Director of Data Management and Analysis for the entire study. He has also been affiliated with the FDA since 1974 as an expert consultant to the Biometrics Division of the Bureau of Drugs, the Over-the-Counter Drug Division, the Cardiovascular-Renal Drugs Division, and the Gastrointestinal Drugs Division. He has served on a number of FDA advisory committees and is presently the Chair of the Nonprescriptive Drugs Advisory Committee.

He is co-author/editor of four books -- Factor Analysis, Goodness-of-Fit Techniques, Mathematical Models in Health Services Research, and Engineering Statistics. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Statistical Association, Biostatistica, and Statistics in Medicine. He is presently the U.S. editor of Statistics in Medicine.