Nancy Zhang, PhD (Statistics)

Ge Li and Ning Zhao Professor
Professor of Statistics and Data Science
Vice Dean of Wharton Doctoral Programs

Research Interests: Statistical Genetics and Genomics

Links: CV, Lab Website

Overview

Dr. Zhang is a Ge Li and Ning Zhao Professor of Statistics in The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania.  Her research focuses in Statistical Genetics and Genomics, primarily on the development of statistical models and computational algorithms for the analysis of data from high-throughput biological experiments.  In Genomics, she has made contributions to DNA copy number estimation in bulk and single cell settings, to the modeling and estimation of intra-tumor genetic heterogeneity, and to the modeling and analysis of single-cell and spatial genomic data.  In Statistics, she has made contributions to change-point analysis, variable selection, and model selection.

Dr. Zhang obtained her Ph.D. in Statistics in 2005 from Stanford University.  After one year of postdoctoral training at University of California, Berkeley, she returned to the Department of Statistics at Stanford University as Assistant Professor in 2006.  She received the Sloan Fellowship in 2011, and formally moved to University of Pennsylvania with tenure in 2012.  She was awarded the Medallion Lectureship by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 2021, and the P.R. Krishnaiah Memorial Lectureship in 2023.  In 2025 she was also awarded the Frontiers of Science Award for her work on gene expression recovery in single cell RNA sequencing.  Her work has been funded by grants from the NSF, NIH, and Mark Foundation.  At Penn, she is a member of the Abramson Cancer Center, the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies, the Institute of Biomedical Informatics, and the Graduate Group in Genomics and Computational Biology.  Dr. Zhang currently serves as the Vice Dean of the Wharton Doctoral Program.

Awards and Honors

• David Cox Medal, 2025
• IMS Medallion Lecture, 2021
• Sloan Fellowship, 2011
• New World Silver Medal for Best PhD Thesis in Mathematical Sciences, 2007