Biostatistics leaders honored by ICSA
Two prominent leaders in the Yale School of Public Health’s Department of Biostatistics have been recognized with prestigious honors by the International Chinese Statistical Association.
Hongyu Zhao, the Ira V. Hiscock Professor of Biostatistics and former biostatistics department chair, and Heping Zhang, the Susan Dwight Bliss Professor of Biostatistics, were honored with the statistical association’s 2023 Distinguished Achievement Award.
The non-profit association, which has over 1,000 active members, issues the Distinguished Achievement Award to two people each year. This year, YSPH’s biostatistics department secured both honors.
“I would like to congratulate Hongyu and Heping for the well-deserved awards, which reflect their foundational contributions to the field of statistics/biostatistics and ICSA,” said Shuangee ‘Steven’ Ma, chair of the biostatistics department. “This is also a testimony of our department’s growing impact.”
Zhao, who is also a professor of statistics and data science and genetics at Yale, was also elected as the statistical association’s president-elect during voting in July. The designation comes with a three-year leadership commitment. In the first year, Zhao will serve as president-elect. In the second year, he will serve as president, and in the third year, he will serve as past president.
Zhao’s research focuses on the development and application of novel statistical methods to address scientific questions in genetics, molecular biology, drug development, and precision medicine.
Some of his recent projects include large-scale genome-wide studies to identify genetic variants underlying complex diseases, genetic risk prediction, single-cell analysis, and biological network modeling and analysis. His work also includes disease biomarker identification, genome annotation, cancer genomics, microbiome analysis, image analysis, and wearable device data analysis. Zhao has published over 650 articles on statistics, human genetics, bioinformatics, and proteomics, and edited two books on human genetics analysis and statistical genomics. He has trained over 100 doctoral and post-doctoral students, many of whom are holding tenured or tenure-track positions at major universities in the states and overseas.
Zhao was the recipient of the Mortimer Spiegelman Award for a top statistician in health statistics under the age of 40 awarded by the American Public Health Association (2008) and he previously received the Pao-Lu Hsu Award from the International Chinese Statistical Association (2018).
Zhang, who is also a professor of statistics and data science at Yale, has published over 360 research articles and monographs on the theory and applications of statistical methods and in several areas of biomedical research including epidemiology, genetics, child and women health, mental health, substance use, and reproductive medicine. He directs the Collaborative Center for Statistics in Science at Yale which coordinates the Reproductive Medicine Network to evaluate treatment effectiveness for infertility. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and a fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. He was named the Myrto Lef-kopoulou distinguished lecturer by the Harvard School of Public Health (2008) and a Medallion Lecturer by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. In 2011, he received the Royan International Award on Reproductive Health. Dr. Zhang is a former president of the International Chinese Statistical Association (2019). He was the recipient of the 2022 Neyman Award and Lecture issued by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.
Founded in 1987, the International Chinese Statistical Association promotes the theory and applications of statistical disciplines through scholarly activities – including the publication of journals in statistics and probability – scientific meetings, and other educational programs.