Gillings, now chairman and chief executive officer of Quintiles, said, Dr. Lin s ideas, lectures, and publications have demonstrated how creativity may be applied to statistical methods. If he continues to help others unlock their creative ability in this way, as I expect he will, this endowment will have been a bargain. Lin received his Ph.D. in biostatistics from the University of Michigan in 1989 and did post-doctoral training at Harvard. In 1990 Lin joined the department of biostatistics at the University of Washington. Recognized worldwide for his research in survival analysis, Lin has published more than 70 peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals.
Survival analysis involves the analysis of long-term studies of health.
By 1981, Gillings had become a full professor in the School of Public Health and was named director of UNC-CH s Biometric Consulting Laboratory. In 1982, Gillings founded Quintiles, which now has operations centers worldwide.