Student Profiles

Jiayu Chen

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2024

Jiayu comes from Shenzhen, a coastal city in southeastern China. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics (Normal School) at Shenzhen University. Later as a tenured teacher, he spent two years teaching mathematics and programming in a public elementary school in Shenzhen. Before pursuing a Ph.D. in Biostatistics, he earned his Master’s in Statistics at UCSD. Meanwhile, he worked at the Moores Cancer Center and was involved in tobacco-related projects using survey data as a graduate student researcher. He has also worked on population pharmacokinetics using non-linear mixed-effect models. With deep interaction with biostatistics, he developed a strong interest in model selection and causal inference. Besides research, he loves playing racket sports such as tennis and squash. He is a National Park Enthusiast and loves to travel and explore new places!

Yiwen Chen

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2023

Yiwen comes from China. She received her Bachelor of Science degree from UCLA with a major in Statistics and a minor in Bioinformatics. After that, she earned her Master of Science degree from the Biostatistics department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her recent project is to develop a tree-based statistical method for high-dimensional microbiome data. In her spare time, she enjoys playing the guitar, playing tennis, and eating good food with family and friends.

Yuwei Cheng

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2020

Yuwei comes from Xi’an, a city in the Northwest China. Before pursuing a Ph.D. in Biostatistics at UCSD, she graduated from College of the Holy Cross with a bachelor's degree in Mathematics. In the College's Summer Research Program and her Honors thesis, she explored the complex genetic underpinnings of adverse metabolic and disease severity outcomes in schizophrenia using Bayesian SEM and machine learning including tree-based and regularized regression methods. Yuwei appreciates studying and living in different places. After spending her junior year at the University of Oxford as a visiting student, she worked under the direction of Dr. Musie Ghebremichael at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard. She is interested in pursuing methodological research motivated by applications in infectious diseases and mental health. In her spare time, she cooks and plays piano. She loves swimming as much as enjoying good food!

Michael Cheung

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2019

Michael Cheung graduated from Occidental College with a bachelor’s in mathematics. Prior to graduating, he worked at the Institute for Social Research at California State University, Sacramento as a student social researcher and intern. During his senior year at Occidental, Michael participated in the Student Independent Research Internship (SIRI) program at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. His experience at JPL led him to work as a software engineer at Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas for two years before ultimately returning to California to pursue a PhD in biostatistics at UCSD. In his spare time, Michael likes to play guitar and talk all things soccer, particularly Chelsea F.C. 

Jasmin Duehring

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2023

Jasmin is a dual German-Canadian citizen and has been residing in Southern California since 2018. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Mathematics at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada and her master’s degree in Statistics at California State University, Fullerton. Prior to pursuing her PhD she competed for the Canadian national cycling team and also spent three years teaching high school math. She is interested in causal inference in epidemiological studies, specifically in the area of maternal, fetal, and perinatal health. In her spare time she loves to be with her family, including her son and Airedale terrier. She also loves backpacking in California’s beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains.

Margaret Elliott

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2022

Maggie grew up in Ohio and attended the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. She graduated with a Bachelor's of Science in Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics, with a Biology concentration and a French minor. At Notre Dame, she assisted with infectious disease modeling research, and developed an interest in intervention trials. She also participated in the 2021 Biomedical Data Science Summer Research Opportunity Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests include clinical trial design and analysis and Bayesian nonparametrics, and she is looking forward to learning about other areas of biostatistical research at UCSD. Besides research, she enjoys spending time in nature, pilates, sewing, going to farmers' markets, and exploring new places - especially with friends and family!

Bohan Jia

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2024

Bohan was born and raised in Beijing, China. Before coming to UCSD, he obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Statistics from Xiamen University and a Master of Science degree in Applied Statistics from New York University. He is highly interested in Bayesian Analysis, Semi-parametric models and Longitudinal Analysis, and he is open to conducting research in other areas of biostatistics. Besides study and research, he enjoys working out in the gym and playing basketball.

Renie (Yunyi) Liu

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2023

Renie loves scientific research and hopes to do science with an eye open for possible applications. She was born and raised in Wuxi, a city in southeastern China. She gained great interest in biostatistics while pursuing her Bachelor’s degree at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Before starting her PhD journey at UCSD, she graduated from Yale University with an MS in Biostatistics. Her research interests mainly lie in the areas of clinical trial design, longitudinal analysis and causal inference. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling and photography.

Man Luo

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2021

Man comes from China. She received her bachelor’s degree in Statistics from Sichuan University. Before joining UCSD, she graduated with a master’s degree in Biostatistics from Columbia University conducting research on missing data, Bayesian statistics and functional analysis. In her free time, she likes watching animation, dancing, and hiking.

Wenjing Meng

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2022

Wenjing comes from China. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in UCSD with a double major in Statistics and Management Science. After that, she received her MS degree in Biostatistics from Yale University. Her research interests lie in applications of statistical methods on clinical trials, and causal inference methods in observational studies. Besides research, she likes anime, video games, and K-pop.

Jasmine Morales

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2021

Jasmine comes from North Hollywood, California. She graduated with her Bachelors of Science in Mathematics and minor in Statistics from the University of California, Riverside in 2019. Her career goal is to obtain her PhD and ultimately become a professor. Jasmine’s research interests lie in, but are not limited to, the study of health problems that are specifically dominant in low-income communities and neighborhoods exposed to issues such as food insecurity, housing instability, and educational impediments. In her free time, Jasmine enjoys traveling, hiking, dancing, weight lifting, and baking.

Fang Nan

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2023

Fang was born in China, where he completed his undergraduate studies and earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics. Subsequently, he joined the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Washington for his master's studies. During his time there, Fang’s research encompassed a range of statistical methodologies, spanning parametric and non-parametric statistics, high-dimensional statistics, and Bayesian shrinkage estimates. His master's thesis delved into the realm of innovative compositional data analysis approaches and their practical applications to physical activity epidemiology. Concurrently, he worked as a research assistant at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center for a period of time. He was also the recipient of the 2023 University of Washington School of Public Health Outstanding Master’s Students in Biostatistics Award. In his leisure time, he enjoys cooking, traveling, and running.

Christian Pascual

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2020

Christian is a NorCal native who's finally decided to explore the other half of California. He went to UC Davis for a BS in Biomedical Engineering and Columbia University for an MS in Biostatistics. He is interested in the exploring the use of wearables to biostatistical research. Outside of the classroom, he enjoys learning new board games, staring at difficult puzzles and standing on the soccer field as a goalkeeper. 

Yuchen Qi

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2021

Yuchen grew up in eastern China and graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics. Prior to beginning the PhD program at UCSD, she attended Columbia University and obtained her master’s degree in Biostatistics. Her recent research projects focus on Bayesian methods and infectious diseases. In her spare time, Yuchen enjoys movies, musicals, and love walking in the woods. 

Jiyue Qin

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2022

Jiyue comes from Nantong, a city in southeastern China. She received her bachelor's degree in Bioscience from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and master's degree in Biostatistics from Columbia University. She then worked at Albert Einstein College of Medicine for two years as a statistician, primarily working on Einstein Aging Study, a prospective cohort study that leverages ambulatory assessments via smartphones and wearable devices. Her interests are given away by her YouTube recommendation page, which is about food, movies and TV shows most of the time. She loves walking and a stroll along the beach at sunset has been her favorite since she moved to the beautiful city of San Diego.

Natalie Quach

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2022

Natalie was born and raised in San Diego, California. She graduated with Latin honors from UCSD in 2022, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics. Previously, she participated in the Big Data Summer Institute, a Summer Institute in Biostatistics program, at the University of Michigan where she conducted statistical analysis on electronic health record data. Prior to graduating, she worked with Professor Xin Tu at UCSD conducting statistical analysis for various biomedical and psychosocial projects and assisting with developing statistical methods. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, such as trying new food and playing board games. She also enjoys cycling on her stationary bike and watching movies.

Howon Ryu

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2021

Howon was born and raised in the suburbs of Seoul, South Korea where she liked to visit museums, ski and hike every winter and spring growing up. She finished her bachelor's in Statistics and Philosophy at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, and joined UCLA for a Master's in Biostatistics with deep interest in solving real world health problems using statistical methods. Her primary biostatistical interest lies in topics including mixed effects PKPD models, clinical trials, and biomedical imaging. In her spare time, Howon enjoys hot yoga, board game nights with friends and family, and trying new recipes at home.

Anubhav Singh Sachan

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2018

Anubhav is fascinated by how the analysis of data can shed light on complex phenomena and play an important role in scientific discoveries. He grew up in Mexico City and attended the National Autonomous University of Mexico where he obtained a bachelor's degree in Applied Mathematics and Computing. After working for over a year as a statistician at a market research company, he decided to return to academia and pursue a master's degree in Statistics at Imperial College London. Whilst there, he spent some months researching Bayesian non-parametric methods that could be used on single-cell sequencing gene expression data to detect dependence between genes. Currently, Anubhav's main interests are Bayesian Analysis, Statistical Genetics and Predictive Modelling. He also enjoys travelling and watching documentaries about prehistoric wildlife.

Lucy Shao

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2021

Lucy grew up in Nanjing, a city in the southern part of China. Lucy graduated from UCLA with a bachelor's in mathematics and then worked on her master's degree in Statistics at UCSD. After graduating, she worked as a data scientist at SDSU for two years, and has returned to UCSD to pursue a Ph.D. in biostatistics. While working as a data scientist, Lucy worked on some projects on causal inference, optimization, and machine learning methods. She is passionate about Bayesian Statistics, causal inference, and high-dimensional data, etc. Her ultimate goal is to explore statistics for the public good. Lucy loves photography, traveling, and scuba diving in her spare time. 

Anya Umlauf

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2016

Anya has graduated from the San Diego State University with a bachelor's degree in Mathematics and a master's in Statistics. Currently a senior statistician for the HIV Neurobehavioral Research Program (HNRP) at the University of California, San Diego, she collaborates with US and international researchers on studying genetic, neurovirologic, neuromedical, neurobehavioral, and neuroimaging data. The complete list of published scientific manuscripts that Anya contributed to can be found here.

In addition, Ms. Umlauf has been teaching statistics since 2007. Most recently, she is a lecturer for Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) Programs in Clinical Research (CREST) and Leadership in Healthcare Organizations (LHCO), UCSD. In her free time Anya enjoys spending time with family and friends. She loves photography, being outdoors, traveling, dancing, and eating good food.

Xinran Wang

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2020

Xinran grew up in northern China. She received her bachelor’s degrees in Probability & Statistics and Economics from UC San Diego. Prior to graduating, she worked with Professor Satchidananda Panda at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies for two years, conducting statistical analysis on human circadian data and detecting the metabolic benefits of Time-Restricted Eating. This fascinating experience sparked her passion for investigating further in the areas of causal inference, longitudinal data analysis, and electronic health records. Besides research, she loves photography, watching musicals and movies, and traveling in her free time.

Morris (Tsung-Chin) Wu

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2020

Morris has graduated from UCSD with a Master’s degree in statistics. In the meanwhile, he worked at Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging in UCSD as a Graduate Student Researcher. He obtained both Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Bachelor of Science degree in Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at National Taiwan University. Morris has a strong interest in modern statistical applications for mental health data, and has applied many statistical methods for longitudinal data analysis, causal inference, and machine learning. In his spare time, he likes playing table tennis, watching movies, and traveling.

Hanxiang Xu

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2024

Hanxiang comes from southern part of China. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Pharmacy from the Zhejiang University and a Master's degree in Biostatistics from the University of Pennsylvania. Throughout involvement in various projects related to clinical trials, omics data analysis and mediation analysis, he developed his passion in Biostatistics and Bioinfomatics. Recently he is engaged in a project trying to develop a new method to identify the cell clusters associated with specific cancer subtypes.

Chang Yan

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2024

Chang comes from Northeast China and completed her Bachelor of Science in Statistics at the Central University of Finance and Economics. She later earned a Master of Science in Biostatistics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research interests lie in longitudinal analysis and causal inference, with a specific focus on child and maternal health. In her leisure time, she enjoys watching Premier League games and is a big fan of "The Lord of the Rings."

Ruifeng Chen

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2017

Ruohi (Matt) Chen

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2018
• Graduation Term: Spring 2023

Life is a journey full of adventures and Matt always want to explore more! Before pursuing the PhD at UCSD, he studied biostatistics at University of Pennsylvania. Matt did his master thesis "Kidney Allograft Offers: Predictors of Turndown and the Impact of Late Organ Acceptance on Allograft Survival" under the instructions of Prof. Justine Shults and Dr. Jordana Cohen. Besides that, he also collaborated with Prof. Pam Shaw in area of longitudinal data analysis, and with Prof. Li Mingyao in area of gene therapy. His research interests are mainly in the area of longitudinal data analysis, survival analysis and causal inference, but he would also love to explore more in some other areas, such as high dimensional data analysis, and developing advance statistical methods.  In his spare time, he is a big fan of basketball, and loves traveling.

Kristen Hansen

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2017
• Graduation Term: Spring 2023

Serene (Lingjing) Jian

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2017
• Graduation Term: Fall 2020

Serene is the first graduate of the Biostatistics doctoral program, receiving her PhD in 2020. She wrote her thesis, Statistical Methods for Longitudinal Data Analysis and Reproducible Feature Selection in Human Microbiome Studies under the advisement of Drs. Wesley Thompson and Rob Knight. Upon graduation, Serene accepted a biostatistician position with Janssen Pharmaceuticals.

Serene previously received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Translation from Chinese University of Hong Kong, and her Master of Science degree in Statistics from University of California, San Diego.

Brian Kwan

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2016
• Graduation Term: Spring 2021

Brian is a 2021 graduate of our doctoral program, writing his thesis entitled Metabolomic Markers and Functional Data Methods for Characterizing and Predicting Diabetic Kidney Disease Progression under the advisement of Dr. Loki Natarajan. Upon graduation, Brian accepted a postdoctoral scholar position in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Brian previously received his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics at University of California, Irvine. 

Tuo Lin

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2018
• Graduation Term: Spring 2023

Upon graduation, Tuo accepted a faculty position in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Florida.

Wenyi Lin

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2017

Wenyi Lin is from China. Prior to beginning her PhD program in UCSD, she received her master of science in Biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University. She also received her bachelor of science in Information and Computing Science at Zhejiang University in China. She applied latent variable models on Nepal infant’s respiratory infection data for her master thesis. Her research interests lie in latent variable analysis, time series and image analysis. Wenyi enjoy playing chess in her free time.

Chenyu Liu

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2019
• Graduation Term: Spring 2024

Chenyu comes from the northern part of China. Prior to beginning her PhD program at UC San Diego, she received her master of science degree in statistics at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.  Her recent work applied ADMM algorithm and Huber loss to solve convex clustering under data contamination. Chenyu is also interested in high dimensional data analysis and developing statistical methods. In her free time, Chenyu loves watching movies and listening to music.

Jinyuan Liu

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2017

Charles (Jiyu) Luo

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2019
• Graduation Term: Summer 2023

Charles was born in southern China and spent most of his youth in Beijing. He enjoys exploring different cultures and that mindset drove him to study abroad after high school. He graduated from the University of Cambridge with a major in Mathematics. After that, he received his MS degree in statistics from the University of Pennsylvania. In the last few years, he worked on various biostatistics projects at the school of medicine as well as during internship. His work primarily focuses on modeling and inference of high dimensional problems in meta-genomics while he also has strong interest in Bayesian models of clinical trials with multiple endpoints. In his spare time, he enjoys reading books, watching NBA basketball and trading.

Yuqi Qiu

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2016
• Graduation Term: Spring 2021

Yuqi is a 2021 graduate of our doctoral program, writing his thesis entitled Doubly Robust Imputation for Longitudinal Data with Monotone Dropouts: Applications in Alzheimer’s Randomized Trials under the advisement of Dr. Karen Messer.  Upon graduation, Yuqi accepted an Assistant Professor position in the Division of Biostatistics / Department of Statistics, with East China Normal University, Shanghai. 

Prior to beginning our doctoral program, Yuqi received his Bbachelor of Science degree in International Economics and Trade from Beijing Normal University and his Master of Science degree in Biostatistics at Case Western Reserve University. 

Junting Ren

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2019
• Graduation Term: Spring 2023

Hey there! Please let me know if you have any question about our PhD program in Biostatistics! You can find my profile on Linkedin.

Tyler Vu

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2018

Tyler was born and raised in Orange County, California where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics at California State University, Fullerton. Previously, he was a data analyst intern at the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project. Tyler developed his interest in biostatistics by participating in the 2017 Summer Program in Biostatistics and Computational Biology at Harvard University where he worked with Dr. Sherri Rose. In 2018, he spent an additional summer working with the biostatistics department at Harvard University working with Dr. Victor De Gruttola. At CSUF, he participated in research projects related to environmental statistics, feature level fusion and financial mathematics. In his free time, he enjoys watching TV shows, NFL football and NBA basketball.

Yiran Zhang

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2018

Yiran is an outgoing girl come from China.  She received her bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics at South China University of Technology and obtained her master’s degree in biostatistics at Emory University. She worked at the transplant center at Emory University’s School of Medicine which inspired her passion to combine statistical methods and human health, especially in the area of women’s health. Her recent work uses a variable selection model for censored data to validate and improve the staging system for breast cancer.  She is also interested in high dimensional data analysis, optimization problem and survival analysis. In her free time she likes to practice yoga and singing.

Yu Zhao

• Degree Program: PhD
• Entry Term: Fall 2019
• Graduation Term: Spring 2023