I am currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics and an Assistant Director of the Duke Microbiome Center at Duke University. Before joining Duke, I was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Statistics, University of Wisconsin - Madison from 2018 to 2020, and a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biostatistics, University of Wisconsin - Madison from 2016 to 2018.

Research Interests

My research focuses on developing statistical methods for the following areas and and providing statistical support for biomedical researchers.

  • Microbiome Research
  • Longitudinal/Temporal Omic Data
  • Integration of Omic Data
  • Spatial Omics
  • High-dimensional Statistical Inference

Current Research Team

Former Trainees

  • Qiuyi Wu (jointly with Anru Zhang), postdoctoral research fellow. Now Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Temple University.
  • Samsul Alam, summer intern (2023). Now postdoctoral researcher, Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Duke University.
  • Peng Wu, summer intern (2022). Now PhD student, Department of Biomedical Data Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
  • Lou Lindsley, summer intern (2026). Now PhD student, Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Education

PhD in Biostatistics, University of Pennsylvania, 2016
Advisor: Hongzhe Li

MS in Biostatistics, University of Pennsylvania, 2015
Advisors: Dylan Small and Nandita Mitra

MS in Statistics, Rutgers University, 2012
Advisor: Min-ge Xie

BS in Statistics, Peking University, 2010
Advisors: Xiangzhong Fang and Jiading Chen

Authored Books

A four-book illustrated series 《看图学统计》 — Learning Statistics Through Pictures that introduces foundational statistical ideas to young readers through bilingual Chinese–English stories with friendly animal characters. Published by Hunan Science and Technology Press in 2026.

The complete 看图学统计 series

View the full book page →

Contact Information

Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics
Duke University
E-mail: pixu dot shi at duke dot edu