Congratulations to Bocheng and Thomas on their promotions!

Bocheng Jing has been promoted from Statistician to Senior Statistician!  Bocheng earned his B.S. in Statistics and B.A. in Economics at UC Davis and his M.S. in Biostatistics at Duke University.  Bocheng was hired in March 2017 to work with multiple Geriatrics researchers on their health outcomes research focused on improving the care of older adults.  Since then, Bocheng’s scope of work has expanded beyond working only with researchers within our Division.  Most recently, Bocheng also worked with (and continues to work with) Drs. Carmen Peralta & Tim Anderson to support their biostatistical needs on their research projects.  In addition, the complexity of Bocheng’s role has also increased greatly.  Most importantly, he is serving as the first author for a number of his research projects; his first-authored presentation “Comparing Traditional Regression Approaches with Machine Learning Approaches for Mortality Prediction” earned him the Outstanding Junior Scientist award at the 2020 Bay Area Clinical Research Symposium, and he has acquired and shares substantial expertise in numerous data sources including the VA electronic health record, the Health and Retirement Survey, the National Health and Aging Trends Study, and linkage of these data sources to Medicare data!  Bocheng has become an essential part of our research team and we are very excited to celebrate his well-deserved promotion to Senior Statistician!

Thomas Yu has been promoted from Senior Research Finance Analyst to Senior Finance Specialist!  Thomas earned his B.S. in Managerial Economics from UC Davis, and was hired in January 2018 as a Research Finance Analyst to support Geriatrics Division Faculty Researchers in pre- and post-award functions.  Before coming to UCSF, Thomas worked at the VA as a Program Specialist in the Office of the Chief under Dr. Ken McQuaid.  Thomas has over 10 years of work experience in a variety of roles that required excellent program management skills, attention to detail, superb customer service, creativity and problem-solving skills.  We’re so glad Thomas joined us in 2018 because he filled the RFA role with ease and “brought his can-do attitude to all of his work and is an exceptional problem-solver” – quoted from one of his PIs.  In a little over a year, his grant portfolio grew over 40%, and the number of budgets he manages went from 46 to 83.  That was last year.  I’m happy to announce that we kept giving him more and more work and he basically said “OK”.  But seriously, Thomas’ portfolio has now grown to over $10 Million a year & 29 PIs, and he is our go-to specialist for any matters related to research administration.  Even more is that his finance management expands beyond sponsored projects.  He plays an important role in Division finances, staffing, as well as faculty support, especially as he quietly fields a number of unprecedented issues from complicated budget issues to systems flaws and limitations.  With the growth of our Division and our faculty’s grant portfolios, Thomas has been able to manage more and more budgets each year and now supports twice the portfolio size we hired him to manage!  If there’s a dollar sign in your question, Thomas has your answer!  We are very excited to celebrate his well-deserved promotion to Senior Finance Specialist!