Qing Zhou's Homepage

Welcome to Qing Zhou's Home Page

UCLA Department of Statistics
8125 Math Sciences Bldg, Box 951554
Los Angeles, CA 90095

Email: zhou@stat.ucla.edu
Phone: (310)794-7563

Curriculum Vitae
Assistant Professor of Statistics, UCLA
Ph.D., Statistics, Harvard University, 2006
B.S./M.S., Engineering, Tsinghua University, 2001

Research Interests:

Computational biology: Our goal is to develop computational and statistical methods for efficient analysis of large-scale high-throughput genomic data. We employ Bayesian modeling, Monte Carlo, and likelihood-based methods to make statistical inference on these data. We are interested in a detailed understanding of gene regulation and aim to decode regulatory circuits by integrating gene expression data, ChIP binding data, and DNA sequence data. The focus of our biological application is on mouse embryonic stem cells. We have found novel transcription factor binding motifs and have constructed regulatory networks in this model system.

Monte Carlo methods: We develop Monte Carlo methods to characterize statistical and topological structures of probability distributions, with applications in Bayesian inference and statistical physics. We are interested in exploring energy landscapes by Monte Carlo algorithms with the use of energy-temperature design, density of states, the tree of sublevel sets, and basins of attraction.

Sample Publications:

Zhou, Q. (2011). Multi-domain sampling with applications to structural inference of Bayesian networks. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 106: 1317-1330.

Zhou, Q. (2011). Random walk over basins of attraction to construct Ising energy landscapes. Physical Review Letters, 106: 180602.

Sridharan, R., Tchieu, J., Mason, M.J., Yachechko, R., Kuoy, E., Horvath, S., Zhou, Q., and Plath, K. (2009). Role of the murine reprogramming factors in the induction of pluripotency. Cell, 136: 364-377.

Zhou, Q., Chipperfield, H., Melton, D.A., and Wong, W.H. (2007). A gene regulatory network in mouse embryonic stem cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 104: 16438-16443.

Kou, S.C.*, Zhou, Q.*, and Wong, W.H. (2006). Equi-energy sampler with applications in statistical inference and statistical mechanics (with discussion). Annals of Statistics, 34: 1581-1652. (*Equal contribution.)

Zhou, Q. and Wong, W.H. (2004). CisModule: De novo discovery of cis-regulatory modules by hierarchical mixture modeling. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 101: 12114-12119.