ABOUT ME
I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I obtained my Ph.D. degree in Statistics and Quantitative Biology at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI.
My main research area is statistical genetics and genomics. My current research focus is developing statistical and computational methodologies to quantify the proportion of cellular compositional effects in the total variation of bulk tissue gene expression, and understand cell-type specific transcriptional changes that are associated with human diseases. I am also interested in novel statistical design and analysis methods for mobile Health studies. (CV)
PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENT
Associate Professor, 07/2021-present, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, UNC Charlotte, NC
Assistant Professor, 08/2014-07/2021, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, UNC Charlotte, NC
Assistant Member, 08/2011-08/2014, Department of Biostatistics, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN
Biostatistician, 12/2011-80/2014, Operations and Biostatistics Center, the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium (PBTC), Memphis, TN
Biostatistician, 10/2013-08/2014, Children’s Oncology Group (COG)
EDUCATION
- B.S., 2003, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
- M.S., 2006, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
- Ph.D., 2011, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
RESEARCH INTEREST
- Statistical methods for pairwise distance-based analysis and applications;
- Statistical and computational methods for the analysis of genetics/genomics data, including investigations of gene-gene/gene-environment interaction, genome-wide association study, systems biology, and epigenome-wide association studies;
- Statistical design for mHealth studies;
- Identify cell-specific transcriptional variations associated with human diseases.
FUNDED RESEARCH GRANTS
- Co-PI, MiREA, a mHealth intervention to Reduce Health Disparities by Improving Equitable
Access to Mandated College Students with Problematic Alcohol and Marijuana Use (PI, Dr. Donna Kazemi, USC), NIH (1R41MD019586-01), 2024-2025. - PI, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, School of Data Science Summer Seed Grant, 2024.
- MPI, Geometric structures guided learning model and algorithms for bulk RNAseq data analysis (PI: Dr. Duan Chen), NIH (R01GM148971), 2022-2025.
- PI, UNCC Faculty Research Grant, 2016-2017.
- Co-I, mHealth Delivery of a Motivational Intervention to Address Heavy Drinking Among College Freshmen (PI: Dr. Donna Kazemi in CHHS), NIH.
