October 30, 2020
The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics (DPET) welcomes new Assistant Professor, Matthew Loop, Ph.D., FAHA.
Matthew joined the team on Aug. 1 and comes from UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, where he was an assistant professor in the Department of Biostatistics for four years.
At the School of Pharmacy, he will be teaching Quantitative Methods in Clinical Research within the DPET Ph.D. program, collaborating with fellow faculty, students, and fellows on projects within the Partnership in Patient Care, and driving forward his own new research program on precision treatment and outcomes of preterm infants.
Prior to joining UNC, Matthew received his Ph.D. in biostatistics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in epidemiology.
We asked Matthew a few questions to get to know him more:
Question: What’s your hometown?
Answer: Birmingham, AL
Q: What are you looking forward to about your new role?
A: I love working “shoulder to shoulder” with colleagues to understand what story the data is telling, using statistics. The late, great statistician John Tukey, who is also my “academic great-grandfather” once said, “The greatest thing about statistics is that you get to play in everyone’s backyard.” I’m a biologist at heart, so I’m really looking forward to working on studies in pharmacy that range from cell cultures all the way up to population-based outcomes. I’m also thrilled to be teaching Quantitative Methods in Clinical Research in the DPET Ph.D. program in the Spring!
Q: What do you feel is your greatest career accomplishment?
A: My first BSPH/MS student, Griffin Bell, getting his first peer-reviewed manuscript published. He is now a great Ph.D. student in the Department of Epidemiology at UNC, and it’s just so fun seeing your mentees excel in their careers!
Q: What do you love most about UNC?
A: Spring! My wife and I had previously said fall was our favorite season, but living in Chapel Hill has changed that for us. There’s nothing better than the first two weeks of April in Chapel Hill.
Q: What’s one thing you want us to know about you?
A: Although I do love the work I do, my favorite projects are my marriage to my wife Emily, as well as being a dad to my daughter Maggie (5), son Avett (3), and baby boy Asher (5 months).