Dr. Yeying Zhu

Biography

Yeying Zhu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo. Her research interests focus on causal inference, with an emphasis on developing theoretically sound methods applicable to data-driven problems. She has a particular interest in the interdisciplinary nature of causal inference. Recent projects include the development of variable selection and dimension reduction procedures designed to address confounding in observational studies, particularly in high-dimensional settings. Additionally, she has created innovative machine learning algorithms for modeling propensity scores in various treatment scenarios, including binary, multi-level, and continuous treatments. Professor Zhu is also engaged in causal mediation analysis, which examines how treatments or interventions affect outcomes through multiple intermediate variables. The applications of her research span biomedical studies, public health, and the social sciences. Yeying Zhu received her BSc in Statistics from East China Normal University in 2006, and later pursued her master's degree at the National University of Singapore. She completed her PhD at Penn State University in 2013, where she also worked as a pre-doctoral fellow at the Quantitative Social Science Initiative and as a research assistant at the Penn State Methodology Center.

Research Interests