Dr Sue Mallett is a Senior Lecturer in Medical Statistics in Test Evaluation Research Group(TERG) led by Prof Jon Deeks at University of Birmingham (2015). Her current work is both as a methodologist and clinical trial statistician, specialising in diagnosis and prognosis. Sue has dual skills training as a medical statistician and in laboratory research as a biochemist and molecular immunologist.
Sue Mallett qualified with a B.A. Hons in biochemistry at Oxford University and a DPhil in molecular immunology on the CD4 T cell activation marker OX40. She worked for 6 years in immunology and virology, including 2 years at University of California San Francisco.
Sue re-trained as a statistician through the Open University UK, whilst working in a range of jobs to build up her experience and portfolio in statistics and clinical trial design. She worked with Prof Sir Roy Anderson and Prof Neil Ferguson at the start up company Oxford Biologica Ltd on modelling of drug resistance in HIV and influenza. She joined the UK Cochrane Centre for a short project working with Prof Mike Clarke and Dr Sally Hopewell on understanding a typical Cochrane review and publication bias. She worked on cancer pathways in the NHS with the Oxford Cancer Intelligence Unit.
In 2002 she joined the Centre for Statistics in Medicine at Oxford University, working with Prof Doug Altman and Prof Jon Deeks on the methods, design and analysis of diagnostic accuracy studies and diagnostic accuracy systematic reviews. She extended her research to include prognostic studies through collaborations with Prof Patrick Royston on a review of methods and on evidence underlying the REMARK reporting guidelines for tumour marker studies with Prof Willi Sauerbrei.
She built up long term collaborations with leading researchers in radiology through Prof Steve Halligan (UCL), Prof Stuart Taylor (UCL) and Prof Vicky Goh (Kings College London), including methodological and radiological research, and NIHR funded diagnostic accuracy studies.
Her collaborations have included a very successful NIHR programme grant led by Prof Steve Halligan included: methodological work on issues with ROC AUC in diagnostic imaging studies, the first studies using eye tracking in 3D medical imaging using CT colonography, support for FDA approval of computer assisted technology in CT colonography and decision choice experiments with patients and health professionals on diagnostic testing.
In 2011 Sue moved to the Department of Primary Care Health Sciences in Oxford where she taught on the MSc in Evidence Based Health Care, and developed collaborations including a systematic review of studies predicting risk of hospitalisation in at risk children with influenza.
In 2015 Sue moved to Test Evaluation Research Group (TERG) at University of Birmingham to work with Prof Jon Deeks. Her work includes leading statistical analysis on five NIHR funded diagnostic accuracy or prediction study clinical trials (STREAMLINE lung & STREAMLINE colon for cancer metastasis, METRIC for Crohn’s disease) and two NIHR prognostic studies (PROSPECT for colon cancer recurrence, ARCHIE: antibiotics for at risk children with influenza). Sue joins the statistical team on diagnostic trials ongoing in the Birmingham Clinical Trials Unit.
Sue has over 80 peer reviewed research publications, most in diagnosis and prognosis, including design, analysis and methodology research. She is a member of the Cochrane Diagnostic Test Accuracy Editorial team, regularly reviews Cochrane protocols and is on the Steering Committee for QUADAS-2 and QUADAS-2C (risk of bias assessment tool for diagnostic accuracy studies) and PROBAST (risk of bias assessment tool for prediction studies).
Sue is a member of the steering committee member of the NIHR statistics group (since its foundation in 2011), a national group which represents and enables best practice for statistical researchers working on NIHR funded projects (http://www.statistics-group.nihr.ac.uk/). Sue co-leads the NIHR Statistics Group section on Imaging Studies (2014- present) and the Diagnostic and Prognostic section (since June 2018)