Center for Statistics in Biomedical Big Data (CSBBD)

Dr. Hongzhe Li is Perelman Professor of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.  He is Vice Chair for Research Integration, Director of Center of Statistics in Big Data and former Chair of the Graduate Program in Biostatistic at Penn. He is also a Professor of Statistics and Data Science at the Wharton School and a Professor of Applied Mathematics and Computational Science at Penn. Dr. Li has been elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA), a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) and a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Dr. Li served on the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute of NIH and regularly serves on various NIH study sections. He served as Chair of the Section on Statistics in Genomics and Genetics of the ASA and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Statistics in Biosciences.   Dr. Li’s research focuses on developing statistical and computational methods for analysis of large-scale genetic, genomics and metagenomics data and theory on high dimensional statistics. He has trained over 50 PhD students and postdoctoral fellows.

As Director of the Center for Statistics in Big Data, Dr. Li spearheads numerous research initiatives that integrate computation and statistics with a diverse array of multimodal health data—ranging from genomics, multiomics, and electronic health records to wearable devices, clinical notes, sensors, and public health records. His goal is to refine diagnosis, prevention, and treatment strategies, tailoring them more precisely to both individuals and communities.

Dr. Li currently serves as Principal Investigator (PI) on two R01 grants focused on developing advanced statistical and AI methodologies for integrative genomics and microbiome/metagenomics analysis. He is also the contact PI for a U01 grant dedicated to creating novel statistical techniques for data analysis within the NIH Developmental Genotype-Tissue Expression (dGTEx) project.

In addition, Dr. Li co-directs the Biomedical Data Science Core of the NIH-funded P30 Center for Molecular Studies in Digestive and Liver Diseases and the Analysis and Submission Core of Penn’s Virome Demonstration Project. He further directs the Nutrition Analytic Core at the Penn Center for Nutritional Science and Medicine (PenNSAM).

Dr. Li’s collaborative efforts extend to working closely with Dr. Sarah Tishkoff at the Penn Center for Global Genomics and Health Equity on multimodal data integration and with Dr. Katalin Susztak on integrative genomics analysis in kidney disease. Additionally, he is actively involved in proteomics research across two large longitudinal cohorts, CRIC and MESA, to improve cardiovascular and kidney disease insights. His longstanding partnership with Dr. T. Tony Cai at the Wharton School focuses on advancing methods and theory in high-dimensional statistics.