Ben Brewer: Finding purpose in the data

The following story was written in May 2025 by Mason Zoellner in ​ENGL ​4824​: Science Writing ​as part of a collaboration between the English department and the Center for Communicating Science.

Ben Brewer’s path to becoming a biostatistician was anything but conventional. From aspiring TV weatherman to industrial engineer to biostatistician, Brewer’s path reveals the unexpected twists that can lead to a fulfilling career. It also teaches the importance of using data to ask meaningful questions, communicate clearly, and contribute to research that can improve lives.

    “I changed majors like three or four times,” Brewer recalls, reflecting on his time as an undergraduate. “When you’re 18, it’s like, okay, what do you want to do for the rest of your life? It doesn’t make any sense.”

    He ultimately landed in industrial engineering during his time as an undergraduate at Auburn University. Brewer then began to realize that the mathematical and statistical components of his work were what truly spiked his interest. “I realized I really just liked the math and [statistics] courses,” he explained. Additionally, a pivotal internship within industrial engineering, where he was tasked with supervising warehouse workers, made it abundantly clear that this was not the future he wanted.

    As graduation approached, Brewer had to pivot. Guided by his passions in mathematics and statistics, Brewer decided to pursue a degree in applied mathematics during his senior year. He then investigated top career options for applied mathematics graduates and found that biostatistics was ranked number one. This discovery led him to Duke University, where he completed a master’s degree in biostatistics, launching him into a career that would allow him to make meaningful contributions to scientific research. 

    Currently a research scientist at the Center for Biostatistics and Health Data Science at Virginia Tech, Brewer works across diverse research domains, from sleep health to nutrition to autism research. When asked if there was a specific research domain he was most passionate about, he replied “I like it all. . .I have yet to encounter a topic that I just hate.” This diversity demonstrates the broad versatility of biostatistical work.

    Among his many projects, one of Brewer’s most impactful studies examined the relationship between physical activity, diet, and sleep health. The research revealed a very strong relationship between daily habits and long-term health risks.

    “You eat like crap one day, and the next day, you're going to be more likely to just kind of sit around and not exercise,” he explains. “And so the point of establishing that relationship was that there are markers of cardiovascular disease that can be detected even in young people who get stuck in this cycle of sleeping poorly and eating poorly and sleeping poorly,” emphasizing the importance of consistent healthy habits. 

    Beyond statistical analysis, Brewer emphasizes the critical social component of his work.

    “There's a surprisingly really big social aspect,” he noted. Effective biostatistics requires much more than math skills — it demands great communication skills that can translate complex research questions into testable hypotheses.

    His doctoral research focused on ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic)–based methods for cutoff estimation.

    “Not all tests only have two outcomes, positive and negative,” he said, while describing the nuances of an ROC curve. Much of his work often lies in the gray area, where symptoms or conditions aren't clearly present or absent, but rather fall along a spectrum of likelihood.

    Ultimately, what truly motivates Brewer is the potential to improve people’s lives through his research.

    “We're doing projects about how we can improve people's standard of living,” he says. “In my view, we’re improving the world in some way, which is something I wanted for my job.”