Meet a Data Scientist: Jie Liu

Background

Dr. Jie Liu earned a Master’s in Statistics and Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and went on to earn a PhD in Computer Science, under the guidance of David Page, from the same university. Prior to attending UW-Madison, Dr. Liu earned a Master’s in Signal and Information Processing from Peking University. He earned a Bachelor’s in Information Management & Information Systems from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

After earning his PhD, Dr. Liu was a Moore-Sloan Postdoctoral Fellow and Washington Foundation Innovation Postdoctoral Fellow in Data Science in the Department of Genomics at the University of Washington (UW). While at UW, Dr. Liu developed machine learning methods for analyzing genomic and proteomic data.

Current Role

Dr. Liu is an Assistant Professor and holds joint appointments in the Department of Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics and the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at the University of Michigan (UM).Dr. Liu’s lab develops computational approaches and tools for understanding the functions of the human genome and the genetic basis of human diseases, including a knowledge graph called GenomicKB to accumulate human-readable knowledge about the human genome and a computational framework called EPCOT which enables computers to accumulate knowledge about the human genome and predict multiple genomic modalities. His lab has also imputed high-resolution chromatin contact maps for GTEx donors with CAESAR.

Dr. Liu expressed gratitude for his lab and said he was fortunate to attract very talented and hard-working students and collaborators.

Career Advice

Dr. Liu believes that early exposure to computational methods and interdisciplinary teams is critical for up-and-coming data scientists. Getting this experience and training early on will help budding scientists learn how to effectively communicate with experts in different fields, which is essential for building productive research relationships.

Outside of Work

When Dr. Liu isn’t teaching, mentoring, and developing new, innovative tools to advance the field of computational medicine and bioinformatics, he enjoys spending time with his young children outdoors.

How to Connect

Check out Dr. Liu’s profile in the CDN Member Directory to learn more about his research and how to get in touch.