Yidong Zhou

About Me

I am currently a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Davis, working with Professor Hans-Georg Müller. Previously, I obtained my Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of California, Davis in March 2024, under the guidance of Professor Hans-Georg Müller. Before coming to UC Davis, I earned my B.S. in Statistics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2019.

Research Interests

My academic focus lies in the advancement of statistical methodology and theoretical frameworks applicable to non-Euclidean data.

• Metric-space-valued data: Networks, covariance matrices, distributions, and compositional data, with applications in biological and social sciences, multi-cohort studies, and brain imaging studies.
• Functional/longitudinal data: Sparse functional data, particularly functional snippets, with applications in accelerated longitudinal studies.

Awards and Honors

• IMS Hannan Graduate Student Travel Award, Apr. 2024
• Scholar Award, NeurIPS, Oct. 2023
• Peter Hall Graduate Student Research Award for overall excellence in statistical research during the doctoral degree, Department of Statistics, UC Davis, Jun. 2023
• Student Paper Award Finalist in Nonparametric Section, American Statistical Association, Jan. 2023

Publications and Preprints

• Kurisu, D.*, Zhou, Y.*, Otsu, T and Müller, H.G. (2024+) Geodesic Causal Inference. [arXiv]
• Iao, S.*, Zhou, Y.* and Müller, H.G. (2024+) Deep Fréchet Regression. [arXiv]
• Zhou, Y. and Müller, H.G. (2023+) Wasserstein Regression with Empirical Measures and Density Estimation for Sparse Data. [arXiv]
• Zhou, Y. and Müller, H.G. (2023+) Dynamic Modeling of Sparse Longitudinal Data and Functional Snippets With Stochastic Differential Equations. [arXiv]
• Zhou, Y., Müller, H.G., Zhu, C., Chen, Y., Wang, J.L., O’Muircheartaigh, J., Bruchhage, M., Deoni, S. and RESONANCE Consortium (2023) Network evolution of regional brain volumes in young children reflects neurocognitive scores and mother’s education. Scientific Reports 13(1), 2984.
• Zhou, Y. and Müller, H.G. (2022) Network Regression with Graph Laplacians. Journal of Machine Learning Research 23(1), 14383-14423.
• Dubey, P., Chen, Y.*, Gajardo, Á.*, Bhattacharjee, S.*, Carroll, C.*, Zhou, Y.*, Chen, H.* and Müller, H.G. (2022) Learning delay dynamics for multivariate stochastic processes, with application to the prediction of the growth rate of COVID-19 cases in the United States. Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications, 514(2), 125677.

Software

• Zhou, Y., Chen, H., Iao, S., Kundu, P., Zhou, H., Bhattacharjee, S., Carroll, C., Chen, Y., Dai, X., Fan, J., Gajardo, A., Hadjipantelis, P.Z., Han, K., Ji, H. and Zhu, C., Müller, H.G. and Wang, J.L. (2024) fdapace: Functional Data Analysis and Empirical Dynamics. R package version 0.6.0.
• Iao, S., Bhattacharjee, S., Chen, Y., Zhu, C., Chen, H., Zhou, Y., Gajardo, Á., Kundu, P., Zhou, H. and Müller, H.G. (2023) fdaconcur: Concurrent Regression and History Index Models for Functional Data. R package version 0.1.2.
• Chen, Y., Zhou, Y., Chen, H., Gajardo, Á., Fan, J., Zhong, Q., Dubey, P., Han, K., Bhattacharjee, S., Zhu, C., Iao, S.I., Kundu, P., Petersen, A. and Müller, H.G. (2023) frechet: Statistical Analysis for Random Objects and Non-Euclidean Data. R package version 0.3.0.

Presentations

• Network Regression with Graph Laplacians
  • CMStatistics, Online, Dec. 2022 (invited)
  • Joint Statistical Meeting, Toronto, Canada, Aug. 2023 (student paper award)
  • NeurIPS, New Orleans, LA, Dec. 2023 (scholar award)
  • Conference on Statistical Methods for High-Dimensional Complex Data, College Station, TX, May 2024 (young investigator presentation)
• Dynamic Modeling of Sparse Longitudinal Data and Functional Snippets with Stochastic Differential Equations
  • Statistics in the Age of AI Conference, Washington, DC, May 2024
• Wasserstein Regression with Empirical Measures and Density Estimation for Sparse Data
  • Joint Statistical Meeting, Portland, OR, Aug. 2024
• Deep Fréchet Regression
  • CMStatistics, Online, Dec. 2024 (invited)

Teaching

• Summer 2023: STA 100A - Applied Statistics for Biological Sciences. [GitHub]

Service

• Reviewer:
  • Journal: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B: Statistical Methodology, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Biometrics
  • Conference: NeurIPS 2024