Statistical and Population Genetics

Jeff Dangl, PhD

HHMI Investigator and John N. Couch Professor of Biology

Core Faculty
Phone: 919-962-4469 | Office: 4260 Genome Sciences Bldg.
Email: dangl@email.unc.edu | Website: http://labs.bio.unc.edu/dangl/

Research Areas: Comparative Genomics and Molecular Evolution, Computational Genomics, Computational Systems Biology, Statistical and Populational Genetics
Research Interests: Plant Immune System, Plant Microbiome research

Yuchao Jiang, PhD

Assistant Professor of Biostatistics & Genetics

Core Faculty
Phone: (919) 843-4822 | Office: 4115D McGavran-Greenberg Hall / 5112 Genetic Medicine Building
Email: yuchaoj@email.unc.edu | Website: https://yuchaojiang.github.io/

Research Areas: Statistical Genetics and Genomics.
Research Interests: Dr Jiang’s primary research interests lie in statistical modeling, method development and data analysis in genetics and genomics. His current research is focused on developing statistical methods and computational algorithms to better utilize and analyze different types of next-generation sequencing data under various setting, with application to data from large-scale cohort studies of human health and disease.

Corbin D. Jones, PhD

Professor of Biology and Genetics

Core Faculty
Phone: 919-962-4443 | Office: 3159 Genome Science Building
Email: cdjones@email.unc.edu | Website: http://bio.unc.edu/people/faculty/cdjones/

Research Areas: Bioinformatics, Comparative Genomics and Molecular Evolution, Statistical and Populational Genetics
Research Interests: Developing novel computational approaches for comparative analysis of genomics data

Yun Li, PhD

Professor of Genetics and Biostatistics

Core Faculty
Phone: 919-843-2832 | Office: 5043 Genetic Medicine Building
Email: yunli@med.unc.edu | Website: https://yunliweb.its.unc.edu

Research Areas: Bioinformatics, Statistical and Populational Genetics
Research Interests: The focus of my research is on the development of statistical methods and their application to the genetic dissection of complex diseases and traits.

Xihao Li, PhD

Assistant Professor of Biostatistics & Genetics

Core Faculty
Phone: (919) 843-3656* | Office: 4115D McGavran-Greenberg Hall*
Email: xihaoli@unc.edu | Website: https://xihaoli.org

Research Areas: Bioinformatics; Statistical and Population Genetics
Research Interests: My research interests lie in developing novel statistical methods and computational tools that (1) enable scalable and integrative analysis of large-scale whole-genome/whole-exome sequencing (WGS/WES) data and multi-omics data, (2) empower meta-analysis of large-scale sequencing data of ancestrally-diverse consortiums and biobanks, and (3) prioritize putative causal genetic variants using functional annotation data to better understand the relationships among genomic variation, genome function, and phenotypes.

Yufeng Liu, PhD

Professor of Statistics & Operations Research, Biostatistics, and Genetics

Resource Faculty
Phone: 919-962-4475 | Office: 4250 Genome Science Building
Email: yfliu@email.unc.edu | Website: http://www.unc.edu/~yfliu

Research Areas: Bioinformatics, Image Analysis, Statistical and Populational Genetics
Research Interests: Statistical Machine Learning and Data Mining; High-dimensional Data Analysis; Nonparametric Statistics and Functional Estimation; Bioinformatics; Cancer Genomics; Medical Imaging Data Analysis

Karen Mohlke, PhD

Professor of Genetics

Resource Faculty
Phone: 919-966-2913 | Office: 5096 Genetic Medicine Bldg.
Email: mohlke@med.unc.edu | Website: http://mohlke.web.unc.edu/

Research Areas: Bioinformatics, Computational Genomics, Statistical and Population Genetics
Research Interests: Genetic basis of complex metabolic traits

Laura Raffield, PhD

Assistant Professor of Genetics

Core Faculty
Phone: (919) 966-7255 | Office: 5042 Genetic Medicine Building
Email: raffield@email.unc.edu | Website: https://www.med.unc.edu/genetics/directory/laura-raffield-phd/

Research Areas: Computational Genomics, Statistical and Population Genetics
Research Interests: My research program uses human genomics and multi-omics to understand inherited and environmental risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases, Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, and related quantitative traits, particularly in understudied African American and Hispanic/Latino populations.

Christoph Rau, PhD

Assistant Professor of Computational Medicine

Core Faculty
Phone: 919-962-5641 | Office: 11004B Mary Ellen Jones Building
Email: ChristophRau@unc.edu | Website: https://raulab.web.unc.edu/

Research Areas: Bioinformatics, Computational Genomics, Computational Systems Biology, Statistical and Population Genetics
Research Interests: The Rau lab utilizes populations of mice to study the transcriptomic and epigenomic landscape underlying cardiovascular disorders using a combination of wet and dry-lab techniques.

Daniel Schrider, PhD

Assistant Professor of Genetics

Core Faculty
Phone: (919) 843-6475 | Office: 5111 Genetic Medicine Building
Email: dschride@email.unc.edu | Website: https://www.schriderlab.org/

Research Areas: Bioinformatics, Comparative Genomics and Molecular Evolution, Computational Genomics, Statistical and Population Genetics
Research Interests: We develop and apply computational tools to make inferences about evolution from population genomic datasets. Our research areas include the population genetics of adaptation, genomic copy number variants, and the application of supervised machine learning tools to evolutionary questions.

William Valdar, PhD

Professor of Genetics

Core Faculty
Phone: 919-843-2833 | Office: 5044 Genetic Medicine Building
Email: william.valdar@unc.edu | Website: http://valdarlab.unc.edu

Research Areas: Computational Genomics, Statistical and Populational Genetics
Research Interests: Quantitative and statistical genetics: modeling the relationship between genes and complex disease in model organisms and humans.

Todd Vision, PhD

Associate Professor of Biology and Adjunct Associate Professor of School of Information and Library Science

Core Faculty
Phone: 919-962-4479 | Office: 3155 Genome Sciences Bldg.
Email: tjv@bio.unc.edu | Website: https://visionlab.web.unc.edu/

Research Areas: Bioinformatics, Comparative Genomics and Molecular Evolution, Computational Genomics, Statistical and Populational Genetics
Research Interests: I am interested in computational, statistical and quantitative approaches to testing ideas about the processes governing the evolution of genetic systems, from changes in gene content to major morphological innovations and other complex traits.

Cavin Ward-Caviness, PhD

Computational Biologist/Principal Investigator of US EPA

Core Faculty
Phone: (919) 966-5445 | Office: 104 Mason Farm Road
Email: ward-caviness.cavin@epa.gov | Website: https://www.wc-lab.com/

Research Areas: Computational Genomics, Statistical and Population Genetics
Research Interests: My primary research interest is in using large clinical databases to uncover environmental and social health risks. In addition I am interested in furthering the use of machine learning in environmental epidemiology and uncovering molecular biomarkers for environmental health risk and the molecular mechanisms by which environmental exposures are translated into health outcomes.

Hyejung Won, PhD

Assistant Professor of Department of Genetics

Core Faculty
Phone: (919) 966-4069 | Office: 7202B Mary Ellen Jones Building, 116 Manning Dr.
Email: hyejung_won@med.unc.edu | Website: http://www.wonlab.org/

Research Areas: Bioinformatics, Statistical and Population Genetics
Research Interests: We try to bridge the gap between genetic risk factors for psychiatric illnesses and neurobiological mechanisms by decoding the regulatory relationships in human brain. In particular, we implement Hi-C, a genome-wide chromosome conformation capture technique, to identify the folding principle of the genome in human brain. We then leverage this information to identify the functional impacts of the common variants associated with neuropsychiatric disorders.

Di Wu, PhD

Associate Professor of Periodontics, School of Dentistry; Biostatistics

Core Faculty
Phone: 919-537-3277 | Office: 4504 Koury Oral Health Sciences Building
Email: dwu@unc.edu | Website: http://sph.unc.edu/adv_profile/di-wu-phd/

Research Areas: Bioinformatics, Computational Genomics, Computational System Biology, Statistical and Population Genetics
Research Interests: Development of statistical methods for multidimensional genomic data integration to understand the biological mechanism of diseases.