Lizhen Shi

Lizhen Shi is an Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Department of Statistics and Data Science at Northwestern University, part of the Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences. They hold a PhD from Florida State University (2020). Their teaching philosophy emphasizes combining textbook learning with participation in competitions and high-impact research papers to enhance student engagement and job readiness. Research interests bridge Computer Science, Bioinformatics, and Biology, focusing on applying Big Data and Machine Learning to solve challenges in genomics and metagenomics.

Education: PhD in Statistics/Data Science (2020, Florida State University).

Research interests include genomic data analysis, metagenomic interpretation, and scalable computational methods. Recent work addresses metagenome assembly challenges, DNA sequence representation (e.g., LSHvec), and genome deconvolution through clustering algorithms. Earlier contributions include SpaRC for scalable sequence clustering and foundational work in gene coexpression networks.

Publications span advancements in genome foundation models (e.g., GenomeOcean), species-aware DNA embeddings (DNABERT-S), and algorithmic improvements for metagenomic analysis. These contributions reflect a focus on bridging computational innovation with biological applications.

No scientific awards or grants are explicitly mentioned. Advising roles are not detailed in the provided materials.

Labs/teams: No specific lab affiliations or collaborative teams are listed in the text.