People

I believe lasting impact comes not only from ideas, but also from people. Mentoring is one of the most rewarding aspects of my career. I enjoy helping students and postdoctoral researchers grow into independent scholars while working on challenging problems in causal inference, (bio)statistics, and public health. I welcome inquiries from prospective PhD students and postdoctoral fellows interested in joining the group.

Current trainees

Anna Guo

Anna Guo

PhD candidate, Biostatistics

since Fall 2021
"My research interests include causal inference, graphical models, and semiparametric statistics. Through my work, I aim to develop statistical methods that enable robust causal conclusions in the presence of data challenges such as missing data and unmeasured confounding. Outside of academia, I enjoy cooking, photography, and spending time with my cats."
Xiaxian Ou

Xiaxian Ou

PhD student, Biostatistics

since Fall 2025
"My research focuses on causal inference, especially causal mediation and path-specific analysis, with an emphasis on methodological development, practical statistical implementation, and applications in health disparities. Outside of research, I am interested in swimming, cooking, and psychology."
Thomas Hsiao

Thomas Hsiao

Postdoc trainee, Biostatistics

since summer 2025
"My research lies at the intersection of causal inference and environmental health. My current work develops dimension reduction methods for causal inference with high-dimensional continuous exposures and mediators, motivated by studies of the health effects of environmental mixtures. More broadly, I am interested in developing statistical methods for drawing reliable conclusions from complex observational data, including problems involving preferential sampling in model-based geostatistics and data fusion for population health monitoring and surveillance."

Co-advised trainees

Xinwei He

Xinwei He

PhD candidate, Biostatistics

since 2023
"My research research develops statistical methods for causal inference and disease surveillance using longitudinal and multi-source data. My work includes semiparametric approaches for estimating path-specific causal effects in studies with multiple mediators, as well as adaptive capture-recapture methods for estimating disease prevalence from multiple data sources."

Committee mentorship

Zihang Wang

Zihang Wang

PhD candidate, Biostatistics

Started Fall 2021
Emily Wu

Emily Wu

PhD candidate, Biostatistics

Started Fall 2021
Yinxian Chen

Yinxian Chen

PhD candidate, Epidemiology

Started Fall 2023

Shiyu Wang

Shiyu Wang

Ph.D., Biostatistics

Graduated Spring 2024