Mingyao Li MS, PhD

Dr. Li joined the biostatistics faculty in 2006 after receiving her Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the University of Michigan in 2005. She is also a faculty member of the Genomics and Computational Biology (GCB) (link is external) graduate program and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Statistics at Wharton (link is external).

Her main research area is statistical genetics and genomics, bioinformatics and computational biology. The central theme of her current research is to use statistical and computational approaches to understand cellular heterogeneity in human disease-relevant tissues, to characterize gene expression diversity across cell types, and to study the patterns of cell state transition and crosstalk of various cells using data generated from single-cell transcriptomics studies.

In addition to methods development, Dr. Li is also interested in collaborating with researchers seeking to identify complex disease susceptibility genes. Her collaborative research includes cardiometabolic disease, age-related macular degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, chronic kidney disease, type 1 diabetes, cancer, and gene therapy for rare diseases.