Faculty Highlight – Gleb Haynatzki, PhD, DSc, Professor and Graduate Program Director, Department of Biostatistics

Dr. Haynatzki grew up in Bulgaria, Eastern Europe. As a teenager, he knew he wanted to be a mathematician, following in his parents’ and paternal grandfather’s tracks. He received a doctorate in mathematical sciences from St. K. Ohridski University in Sofia, Bulgaria, and another in statistics and applied probability from the University of California in 1995, which was followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at McMaster University, Canada, from 1995 to 1997. He has worked in the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics at St. K. Ohridski University in Sofia, Bulgaria, and was one of the founding faculty members of the American University in Bulgaria in the early 1990s. After his postdoc in Canada, he served on the faculty at the Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha from 1997 to 2008, collaborating on several research initiatives in osteoporosis, bone biology, violence prevention, hereditary cancer, genetic anticipation in pancreatic cancer, and glaucoma screening.

Dr. Haynatzki joined the UNMC College of Public Health in July 2008. His duties in the Department of Biostatistics focus on developing new graduate programs and courses, teaching, research, and service activities related to biostatistics. He teaches both beginners and more advanced graduate level biostatistics courses. His current research interests include statistical models in survival analysis, cancer epidemiology, carcinogenesis, hereditary cancer, and glaucoma screening.

In his spare time, Dr Haynatzki works on both the creation and solution of problems for mathematics contests for elementary, middle, and high school students.