I was trained in Mathematics & Statistics (BSc.) at McMaster University. During my undergraduate training, I had the great opportunity to work with Dr. Canty and Pare to develop statistical tests for identification of gene-environment and gene-gene interactions in the context of genome-wide studies. As a continuation of my research, I later completed a Master degree in Health Research Methodology at McMaster working primarily on statistical genetics methods.

My research experience had prepared me for the journey as a statistics PhD students at University of Toronto. My main research at U of T with my graduate mentor, Radu Craiu, is to develop a penalized log-likelihood criterion to determine the number of clusters in various data applications. In the meantime, I am working with Lei Sun to further our understand of variance heterogeneity tests on X-chromosome variants.

Currently, I am working to extend my research focus beyond genetics and moving towards machine learning methodology and the deep learning world. I know it seems late for some to start in the final years of a PhD on new topics, but I believe that nothing is too late when you set your mind to it. To me, there is nothing more humble than to embrace the unknown.

During my time at U of T, I have also done quite a bit of TA work. But it was not until working with Alison Gibbs, Nathan Taback, and Becky Lin, that I was exposed to the diverse formats of statistical education. In particular, I had been a TA mentor in STA490 Statistical consultation and collaboration, where I was expected to supervise two groups of undergrad students providing statistical consultation to research collaborators in various disciplines.

In my spare time, I like to listen to classical music, watch ballet and movies (very picky), and eat delicious food. If I have more time, I like to travel the world and attempt to go places where I do not need my computer. Though a confer-cation can also be fun sometimes.