Kirsha Gordon, PhD, MS

Dr. Gordon is an Associate Research Scientist, Biostatistician and Epidemiologist working with the Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS), the Consortium to Improve Outcomes in HIV/AIDS, Alcohol, Aging, and Multi-substance use (COMpAAAS), the Integrative Management of Chronic Pain and Opioid Use Disorder for Whole Recovery-Yale and Organizations United (IMPOWR-YOU) Research Center, the Pain Research, Informatics, Multimorbidities, and Education (PRIME) Center of Excellence, and the Understanding Suicide Risks among LGBT Veterans in VA Care research groups. She has also collaborated with the NIH-DoD-VA Pain Management Collaboratory Coordinating Center (PMC3), the National Women Veterans Hormone Replacement Therapy Study, the Women Veterans Cohort Study (WVCS), the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, and the Social Ties Associated with Risk of Transition into Injection Drug Use Study (START). She received her bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Manhattan College, and a Masters in Biostatistics and Ph.D. in Epidemiology from Columbia University. In her role as a lead statistician, she collaborates with clinical investigators from Yale and VA Connecticut on a wide range of biomedical and public health research projects, such as studying opioids, substance use, and polypharmacy in veterans using data from a 20 year-long prospective national survey cohort and an electronic health records cohort. She is particularly interested in the disparity in care by gender, race, and orientation; and has examined the impact of behavioral patterns (e.g. unhealthy alcohol use) on HIV risk among minorities and marginalized groups. She has overseen study design, methodology, data coordination, and biostatistical efforts including but not limited to analyzing longitudinal data. Dr. Gordon is the chair of the VACS statistics workgroup and co-chair of the VACS Polypharmacy workgroup.