Carolyn M. Rutter

Photo of Carolyn Rutter
Senior Statistician; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School
Off Site Office

Education

Ph.D. in biostatistics, UCLA

Overview

Carolyn Rutter is a senior statistician at the RAND Corporation and a professor at Pardee RAND Graduate School. Her research interests include developing and applying Bayesian models, evaluation of diagnostic and screening tests, provider profiling, and microsimulation modeling.  

Rutter is a principal investigator (PI) for a Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET) team and led the development of the CRC-SPIN microsimulation model for colorectal cancer, development of Bayesian methods for model calibration, and external validation of the three CISNET colorectal cancer models.  Her current work focuses on likelihood-free methods for model calibration, which are especially useful for high dimensional parameter spaces and when there are multiple calibration targets.  She also studied the effectiveness of colorectal cancer screening as a PI of one of NCI's PROSPR research centers. Rutter is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and has more than 140 articles in journals including Annals of Internal Medicine, Biostatistics, Journal of the American Statistical Society, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Medical Decision Making, Medical Care, and Statistics in Medicine. Rutter serves on the editorial board for Medical Decision Making and Statistics in Medicine. Rutter received her Ph.D. in biostatistics from UCLA.

Research Focus

Selected Publications

Knudsen AB, Zauber AG, Rutter CM, Naber SK, Doria-Rose VP, Pabiniak C, Johanson C, Fischer SE, Lansdorp-Vogelaar I, Kuntz KM. , "Estimation of benefits, burden, and harms of colorectal cancer screening strategies: modeling study for the US Preventive Services Task Force ," JAMA, 315(23), 2016

Rutter CM, Kim JJ, Meester RGS, Sprague BL, Burger EA, Zauber AG, Ergun MA, Campos NG, Doubeni CA, Trentham-Dietz A, Sy S, Alagoz O, Stout NK, Lansdorp-Vogelaar I, Corley DA, Tosteson ANA. , "Effect of Time to Diagnostic Testing for Breast, Cervical, and Colorectal Cancer Screening Abnormalities on Screening Efficacy: A Modeling Study," Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, 2018

Rutter CM, Inadomi JM., " Follow-up of Positive Fecal Test Results: Sooner Is Better, but How Much Better?" JAMA, 2017

Honors & Awards

  • Fellow, American Statistical Association

Publications