The Yale School of Public Health proudly welcomes 13 new tenure track faculty this academic year. These individuals bring a broad range of research, scholarship, and teaching expertise to the school and will be instrumental in helping us address many of the public health challenges of the 21st century.
Today we spotlight, Leying Guan, assistant professor in the Department of Biostatistics. Guan has a Ph.D. in statistics from Stanford University (2019) and a B.S. in mathematics and physics from Tsinghua University (2014).
Q: Describe your primary academic focus or research specialty?
LG: My primary research focus is to develop and understand statistical methods for scientific applications. I have worked on high-dimensional statistics, statistical inference and transfer learning as part of my Ph.D. and have some experience in modeling genetic data. I would like to continue to explore the use of statistics in genetics and genome-wide association studies. I also have a growing interest in computational neuroscience.
Q: What are your long-term goals in public health?
LG: I would like to establish long-term collaborations with faculty in other fields, like computational neuroscience and genetics, and develop powerful and robust statistical methods for the deluge of data that is available.
Q: How will the resources available at the Yale School of Public Health help you achieve your goals?
LG: I think there are a lot of opportunities for collaboration at Yale School of Public Health. Also, since new faculty have mentors from two different departments within the school, I believe it can help with both collaborations and in finding whatever resources I will need.
Q: Tell us something about yourself away from public health (E.g., hobbies, interests, pursuits, etc.)?
LG: I have many transient interests, and every few months, I try to find something new to learn. My recent goals are to gain introductory-level knowledge of quantum physics and to learn to play tennis. The process of learning makes me feel refreshed and satisfied.