About me

I am currently an Independent Fellow at the Center for Studies in Physics and Biology at The Rockefeller University. My research asks how gene regulatory networks generate, stabilize, and redirect cell states. I combine machine learning, statistical physics, and single-cell genomics to build models that are both mechanistically interpretable and predictive.

I am especially interested in the following questions:

• How do regulatory networks keep cell states stable yet adaptable? Cells must preserve essential functions despite genetic and environmental disturbances, while remaining responsive to signals that trigger changes in cell fate. I study how distributed interactions among regulatory programs create this balance between robustness and flexibility.
• How can perturbations expose regulatory interactions that are hidden in unperturbed data? Observational datasets often sample only a limited region of the cell-state landscape, leaving many regulatory relationships difficult to identify. Genetic, chemical, and signaling perturbations drive cells into otherwise inaccessible states and reveal how the underlying network reorganizes.
• How can generative models guide experiments and interventions to steer cell populations? A useful model should not only explain the states already observed, but also predict responses to new perturbations and combinations. I develop interpretable models that help select informative experiments and identify efficient routes toward desired cellular states.

I earned my Ph.D. under the supervision Prof. Matt Thomson at Caltech in Systems Biology with minor in Applied and Computational Mathematics. During my Ph.D., I developed D-SPIN, a framework for learning regulatory network models from large-scale single-cell perturbation data. D-SPIN treats the regulatory network as an energy landscape of possible cell states and perturbations as forces that tilt the landscape. By integrating responses across thousands of genetic, chemical, and signaling conditions, it transforms descriptive single-cell atlases into models of the regulatory logic that produces the observed cell states.

I got my B.S. in Integrated Science from Yuanpei College at Peking University. Outside research, I enjoy playing guitar, learning new musical instruments, and exploring the city.