Xiangrong Kong, PhD

Dr. Xiangrong Kong is Akef El-Maghraby Professor in Preventive Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute. She is Professor of Ophthalmology and Director of the Wilmer Biostatistics Center, and holds joint appointments in the Departments of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Health, Behavior, and Society in the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Kong received her PhD in Biostatistics from the Medical College of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University. She then joined the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as a research faculty member and received further training in Global Health, Behavioral Sciences, and Retinal Degenerations and Clinical Electrophysiology.

Dr. Kong is a leading investigator in inherited retinal disease (IRD) research, with expertise spanning clinical-trial methodology, biostatistics, longitudinal outcomes, and the design and execution of large international studies. As Director of the NAC Attack, she provides overarching scientific, statistical, administrative, financial, and operational leadership across the full spectrum of the trial—from study conception and design through regulatory coordination, international site management, financial and administrative oversight, data infrastructure, study conduct, long-term follow-up, and scientific conceptualization and analysis. Under her leadership, NAC Attack has grown into a landmark phase III international trial involving 485 participants at 31 sites across seven countries. More broadly, Dr. Kong leads multidisciplinary IRD research programs that integrate rigorous biostatistical methodology with clinical and translational research to advance clinical science and the development and evaluation of treatments for inherited retinal disorders.

A main methodological focus of Dr. Kong’s work, as reflected in the NAC Attack trial, concerns outcome measure selection in slow-progressing retinal diseases and developing clinical trial designs following the Estimand Framework in the ICH E9 (R1) Statistical Principles for Clinical Trials. 

Dr. Kong has also worked on a broad range of clinical ophthalmic studies, including genetic retinal degeneration, ocular neuroretinal measurements, myopia, and low vision rehabilitation. 

In other areas, Dr. Kong has worked on program impact evaluation for assessing the population level impact of scale-up of HIV preventive interventions on the HIV epidemic in South Uganda. She also has training and research experience in developing, evaluating, and implementing social and behavioral sciences approaches for promoting health behaviors. Dr. Kong’s research interests in biostatistical methodology include correlated data analysis, longitudinal data analysis, survival analysis, measurement error models, and power and sample size calculations.