Yongzhao Shao, PhD

SUMMARY

I am an expert in developing innovative statistical methods for the design and analysis of clinical trials, cancer research, environmental epidemiology, genetic epidemiology, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia research, translational research. In particular, I have developed novel study designs and efficient analysis approaches for multi-group studies, and translational research with unobserved heterogeneity and high-dimensional data. I have published extensively on likelihood theory, information theory, mixture and mixed models, survival analysis, hypothesis testing, predictive models. I have served on editorial board of leading statistical and biomedical journals including the Journal of the American Statistical Association (JASA). I am an elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association for my contributions to the development of novel statistical methods and applications to health research. I have also served on numerous national and international expert review committees for research grants.  

My collaborative research focuses on developing and utilizing innovative statistical methods to solve study design and data analysis problems in cancer precision medicine, environmental medicine, Alzheimer’s disease and related research areas. In particular, I am the Core Leader of the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core at the NYU Melanoma SPORE (NIH P50CA225450) to develop predictive models for patient responses to melanoma immunotherapies by integrating a wide range of bio-markers including genetics, epigenetics, proteomics, ctDNA, microRNA, and microbiome. I have also collaborated with other cancer researchers and served as Deputy Director of the Biostatistics Shared Resources (BSR) at NCI designated NYU Perlmutter Comprehensive Cancer Center. I have been working with colleagues to evaluate health impact of air pollution and other environmental exposures including World Trade Center (WTC) disaster related dust and psychological exposures on co-morbid mental and physical disorders. I am the Analytic Director of the NIOSH funded WTC Environmental Health Center (NIOSH 200-2017-93327) and Leader of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Core. I am Director of the Data Management and Statistics Core at the NIA designated NYU Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (NIH 5P30AG008051), and Director of the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core at the NIA funded P01 Project to study bio-markers and develop  novel treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

For education and training activities, I have been the Course Director of Biostatistics at NYU-HHC CTSI summer intensive education program where we teach study design, bioinformatics, statistics and related data analytic skills to medical students, fellows and young translational research investigators. I have served as the Biostatistics Content Director of the NYU School of Medicine C21 Curriculum. I am also Course Directors of Advanced Survival Analysis at NYU Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In addition, I have directed more than 20 PhD dissertations in developing advanced predictive models, novel bioinformatics methods and machine learning algorithms for precision medicine, translational research, and other applications.