Education

• Ph.D. in Statistics, Pennsylvania State University, 2018 - 2023.
• B.S. in Mathematics, Renmin University of China, 2014 - 2018.
• B.Ec. in Finance, Renmin University of China, 2014 - 2018.

Research

• Large-scale/high-dimensional statistical learning.
• Longitudinal data analysis.
• Robust statistics.
• Statistical applications in healthcare, social behavioral science, and other domains.

Publications

• Dependence Motives and Use Contexts That Predicted Smoking Cessation and Vaping Cessation: A Two-Year Longitudinal Study With 13 Waves
  Nam, J.K., Piper, M.E., Tong, Z., Li, R., Yang, J.J., Jorenby, D.E. and Buu, A.
  Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2023
  |paper|
• Model-Free Conditional Feature Screening With FDR Control
  Tong, Z., Cai, Z., Yang, S. and Li, R.
  Journal of American Statistical Association, 2022
  |paper||code|
• The Situational Contexts and Subjective Effects of Co-use of Electronic Cigarettes and Alcohol Among College Students: An Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) Study
  Yang, J.J., Lin, H.C., Ou, T.S., Tong, Z., Li, R., Piper, M.E. and Buu, A.
  Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2022
  |paper|

Teaching

• 2019 Summer & 2020 Summer: STAT 480 (Introduction to SAS).

Awards

• IMS Hannan Graduate Student Travel Award, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 2023.
• J. Keith Ord Scholarship in Statistics, Penn State University, 2022.
• JSM Travel Award, Nonparametric Section, American Statistical Association, 2021.
• Distinguished Graduate Fellowship, Penn State University, 2018-2020.
• Outstanding Graduate, Beijing Municipal Education Commission, 2018.
• Mitacs (Canada) and China Scholarship Council Research Scholarship, 2017.