Ran Zhang

Google Scholar, ORCID, CV

I am an assistant professor at the School of Data Science and Society, UNC-Chapel Hill. 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.

I started my career as a wet lab biologist in undergraduate studies. I used a combination of experimental approaches – including imaging, biochemistry, and cell biology – to study autophagy in human cell lines and yeast. My graduate work is focused on integrating large-scale functional genomics datasets and applying network-based approaches to predict context-specific disease genes and pathways in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases and disorders. During my postdoc studies, I developed deep learning methods to integrate and translate single-cell multi-omics profiles across data modality, time, and species to generate biological hypotheses in biological contexts or data modalities where experimental measurement is scarce.

My lab’s research interests include:

• Bulk and single-cell level cross-modality translation and integration
• Cross-species prediction to transfer knowledge from model organisms to human
• Characterizing genes and processes underlying complex human diseases and disorders

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 the Opportunities page. Undergraduate students at UNC are encouraged to contact me to discuss potential research projects.