Rate My Professor Paul Dickman

Paul Dickman is a Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics (MEB) at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, a position he has held since July 2013. Employed at the institution since March 1999, he currently serves as Deputy Head of Department (since 2019), Head of the MEB Biostatistics Group (since 2018), and Programme Director for the Master's Programme in Biostatistics and Data Science (since 2023). He is also course director and teacher for several courses within this programme. Dickman's academic background includes a PhD in Statistics from the University of Newcastle, Australia, awarded in 1997 for his thesis "Estimating Regional Variation in Cancer Patient Survival," a Bachelor of Mathematics with First Class Honours from the same university in 1992, and a Docentur in Biostatistics from Karolinska Institutet in 2002. Prior to his professorship, he completed postdoctoral training in cancer epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet and the Finnish Cancer Registry from 1998 to 1999.

Dickman's research specializes in the development and application of statistical methods for register-based epidemiology, with a primary focus on cancer patient survival analysis, including the estimation and modeling of relative and net survival using flexible parametric models, cure models, and multistate models. Leading the Statistical Methods in Epidemiology research group, he has contributed to over 200 publications in high-impact journals such as the British Journal of Cancer, International Journal of Cancer, and Statistics in Medicine. Notable publications include "Interpreting Trends in Cancer Patient Survival" (Acta Oncologica, 2006), "A multistate model incorporating estimation of excess hazards and multiple time scales" (Statistics in Medicine, 2021), "Cancer survival statistics for patients and healthcare professionals – a tutorial of real-world data analysis" (British Journal of Cancer, 2021), and "Improving communication of cancer survival statistics-feasibility of implementing model-based algorithms in routine publications" (British Journal of Cancer, 2023). His work has influenced cancer survival reporting and health technology assessments. Dickman has supervised eight doctoral theses as main supervisor and eighteen as co-supervisor, secured grants from the Swedish Cancer Society and Swedish Research Council, and developed widely used Stata commands (strs and stnet) for relative survival analysis. In recognition of his efforts in advancing biostatistics education and research, he was awarded the Statistical Promoter of the Year 2023 by the Swedish Statistical Society. Additionally, he has held key roles such as President of the Swedish Society for Medical Statistics (2016-2017), guest editor for the British Journal of Cancer (2022-2023), and member of various scientific evaluation committees.