Ran Zhang

Google Scholar, ORCID, CV

I am an assistant professor at the School of Data Science and Society, UNC-Chapel Hill. I am also core faculty in the Curriculum in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. Previously, I was a UW Data Science postdoctoral fellow with Dr. William Noble at the University of Washington. I did my undergraduate studies at Tsinghua University and my graduate studies at Princeton University, supervised by Dr. Olga Troyanskaya. My work is supported by the K99/R00 NIH Pathway to Independence Award from NHGRI.

My lab’s research interests include:

• Developing machine learning methods for high-dimensional, sparse, heterogeneous, and multimodal genomics data.
• Transferring knowledge across species and data modalities to facilitate hypothesis generation in under-characterized contexts.
• Characterizing genes and molecular processes underlying complex human diseases and disorders, including autism spectrum disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, and Turner Syndrome.

We are seeking motivated undergraduate students, PhD students, and postdoctoral researchers with interests in computational biology, data science, machine learning, and genomics. To apply, please send your CV and a brief summary of your research interests to ranzhang [at] unc.edu. PhD students and postdoctoral candidates can also visit this page for more information. Undergraduate students at UNC who have completed coursework in machine learning and/or genetics/genomics are welcome to reach out to discuss potential research projects.