University of Colorado Denver College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Bio

Stephanie (Monks) Santorico, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver. Dr. Santorico’s research interests are in the area of statistical genetics, specifically in the development of statistical methods and study designs for gene discovery through the use of pedigree and population-based data. Her methodological work initially concentrated on the use of linkage disequilibrium between alleles at two genetic loci in order to localize susceptibility genes for both disease and quantitative traits (Monks, Kaplan, Weir 1998; Monks et al 1999; Monks, Kaplan 2000; Martin et al 2000). She has collaborated on large family studies of Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes (Austin et al 2003; Edwards et al 2008). Her current research is aimed at dissecting interacting disease susceptibility pathways by applying statistical genetics principles to gene expression data (Schadt, Monks et al 2003; Schadt, Monks, Friend 2003; Monks et al 2004, Schadt et al 2005). Her ongoing research investigates refinement of multiple-testing correction, combining genetic data across multiple ethnic groups, and accounting for the effects of rare variants on complex traits. She has a track record of conducting research in a collaborative setting among federal, state, private and corporate institutions.

Dr. Santorico has been involved in the management and instruction of graduate programs for the past 10 years. This has included developing new degree programs at the University of Washington, including a Certificate of Graduate Studies in Statistical Genetics, a Master of Science in Genetic Epidemiology and Ph.D. programs in both Public Health Genetics and Statistical Genetics. She coordinated a seminar series in Public Health Genetics on topics related to public health genetics, including current bioethical, legal, medical, biotechnology, and public policy issues. She co-organized and co-chaired the Second Workshop in Statistical Genetics and Computational Molecular Biology in 2003 and was organizer and moderator of an Invited session at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Human Genetics: “Genetics of Gene Expression: New Strategies for Studying Complex Traits”. She was Undergraduate Director for the Department of Statistics at Oklahoma State University in 2007-2008. Currently, she is Graduate Director for the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver and serves at a National Human Genome Research Institute Mentor for local high school teachers and students.

Select Publications

Monks SA, Kaplan NL, Weir BS: "A comparative study of sibship tests of linkage and/or association." Am J Hum Genet 63:1507-1516, 1998.

Monks SA, Kaplan NL: "Removing the size restrictions from family-based tests of association for a quantitative trait locus." Am J Hum Genet, 66: 576-592, 2000.

Martin ER, Monks SA, Warren LL, Kaplan NL: "An test for linkage and association in general pedigrees: the pedigree disequilibrium test (PDT)." Am J Hum Genet Suppl. 67:146-154, 2000.

Schadt EE*, Monks SA * et al: "The genetics of gene expression: a survey across man, mouse and maize." Nature. 422:297-302, 2003

Monks SA, Leonardson A, Zhu H, Cundiff P, Pietrusiak P, Edwards S, Phillips J, Sachs A, Schadt EE (2004) "Genetic Inheritance of Gene Expression in Human Cell Lines." Am J Hum Genet 75(6):1094-105

Schadt EE, Lamb J, Yang X, Zhu J, Edwards S, Guhathakurta D, Sieberts SK, Monks S, Reitman M, Zhang C, Lum PY, Leonardson A, Thieringer R, Metzger JM, Yang L, Castle J, Zhu H, Kash SF, Drake TA, Sachs A, Lusis AJ (2005) "An integrative genomics approach to infer causal associations between gene expression and disease." Nat Genet 37(7):710-7

Simon JS, Karnoub MC, Devlin DJ, Arreaza MG, Qiu P, Monks SA, Severino ME, Deutsch P, Palmisano J, Sachs AB, Bayne ML, Plump AS, Schadt EE (2005) "Sequence variation in NPC1L1 and association with improved LDL-Cholesterol lowering in response to ezetimibe treatment." Genomics 86(6):648-56

Hing AV, Leblond C, Sze RW, Starr JR, Monks S, Parisi MA (2006) "A novel oculo-oto-facial dysplasia in a Native Alaskan community with autosomal recessive inheritance." Am J Med Genet A. 140(8):804-12

French B, Lumley T, Monks SA, Rice KM, Hindorff LA, Reiner AP, Psaty BM (2006) "Simple estimates of haplotype relative risks in case-control data." Genet Epidemiol 30(6):485-494

Edwards KL, Hutter CM, Wan JY, Kim H, Monks SA (2008) "Genome-wide linkage scan for the metabolic syndrome: the GENNID study." Obesity (Silver Spring) 16(7):1596-601

Courses Taught

MATH 4830/5830: Applied Statistics
MATH 6388: Advanced Statistical Methods for Research
MATH 6395: Multivariate Methods
MATH 7381: Mathematical Statistics I
MATH 7382: Mathematical Statistics II