The department of Biostatistics and School of Public Health was saddened by the passing of David Wheeler, Ph.D. on Saturday, June 29, 2024 after a lengthy and courageous battle with brain cancer.
Dr. Wheeler earned his Master's in Applied Statistics and Ph.D. in Geography from Ohio State University, followed by a Master of Public Health from Harvard University. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Biostatistics at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and was a Cancer Prevention Fellow at the National Cancer Institute. In 2011, Dr. Wheeler joined Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics. He was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2017 and Full Professor in 2023.
Dr. Wheeler was internationally known for his research, focusing on spatial, environmental, and cancer epidemiology, emphasizing the analysis of environmental exposures, mixture analysis, and spatial patterns in disease risk. He served as the Principal Investigator on 12 grants from agencies such as the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society. His prolific contributions include more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and over 7,500 citations. Dr. Wheeler has also served on the editorial board of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health since 2019 and has been a reviewer for numerous peer-reviewed journals and grant review panels.
During his tenure at VCU, Dr. Wheeler taught courses in Spatial Data Analysis, Statistical Computing, and Applied Data Analysis. His exceptional teaching was recognized in 2019 when he received the Best Elective Course award in the Masters in Public Health Program from the Department of Epidemiology. Dr. Wheeler mentored seven Ph.D. students on topics related to spatial models for environmental and chemical exposures and causal modeling and served as a dissertation committee member for an additional 13 students.