Nancy R. Zhang

Nancy R. Zhang
  • Ge Li and Ning Zhao Professor
  • Professor of Statistics and Data Science
  • Vice Dean of Wharton Doctoral Programs

Contact Information

  • office Address:

    431 Academic Research Building
    265 South 37th Street
    Philadelphia, PA 19104

Research Interests: statistical genetics and genomics

Links: CV, Lab Website

Overview

Dr. Zhang is a Ge Li and Ning Zhao Professor of Statistics in The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania.  Her research focuses in Statistical Genetics and Genomics, primarily on the development of statistical models and computational algorithms for the analysis of data from high-throughput biological experiments.  In Genomics, she has made contributions to DNA copy number estimation in bulk and single cell settings, to the modeling and estimation of intra-tumor genetic heterogeneity, and to the modeling and analysis of single-cell and spatial genomic data.  In Statistics, she has made contributions to change-point analysis, variable selection, and model selection.

Dr. Zhang obtained her Ph.D. in Statistics in 2005 from Stanford University.  After one year of postdoctoral training at University of California, Berkeley, she returned to the Department of Statistics at Stanford University as Assistant Professor in 2006.  She received the Sloan Fellowship in 2011, and formally moved to University of Pennsylvania with tenure in 2012.  She was awarded the Medallion Lectureship by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 2021, and the P.R. Krishnaiah Memorial Lectureship in 2023.  In 2025 she was also awarded the Frontiers of Science Award for her work on gene expression recovery in single cell RNA sequencing.  Her work has been funded by grants from the NSF, NIH, and Mark Foundation.  At Penn, she is a member of the Abramson Cancer Center, the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies, the Institute of Biomedical Informatics, and the Graduate Group in Genomics and Computational Biology.  Dr. Zhang currently serves as the Vice Dean of the Wharton Doctoral Program.

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Research

You can find the latest updates on my research on my lab website and my google scholar page.

 

 

Teaching

All Courses

  • AMCS5999 - Independent Study

    Independent Study allows students to pursue academic interests not available in regularly offered courses. Students must consult with their academic advisor to formulate a project directly related to the student’s research interests. All independent study courses are subject to the approval of the AMCS Graduate Group Chair.

  • AMCS9999 - Ind Study & Research

    Study under the direction of a faculty member.

  • GCB6990 - Lab Rotation

    Lab rotation

  • GCB7990 - Independent Study

    Independent study course

  • GCB8990 - Pre-Dissertation Research

    Pre-dissertation lab research

  • GCB9950 - Dissertation

    Ph.D. students enroll in this course after passing their candidacy exam. They work on their dissertation full-time under the guidance of their dissertation supervisor and other members of their dissertation committee.

  • STAT4050 - Stat Computing with R

    The goal of this course is to introduce students to the R programming language and related eco-system. This course will provide a skill-set that is in demand in both the research and business environments. In addition, R is a platform that is used and required in other advanced classes taught at Wharton, so that this class will prepare students for these higher level classes and electives.

  • STAT7050 - Stat Computing with R

    The goal of this course is to introduce students to the R programming language and related eco-system. This course will provide a skill-set that is in demand in both the research and business environments. In addition, R is a platform that is used and required in other advanced classes taught at Wharton, so that this class will prepare students for these higher level classes and electives.

  • STAT9610 - Statistical Methodology

    This is a course that prepares 1st year PhD students in statistics for a research career. This is not an applied statistics course. Topics covered include: linear models and their high-dimensional geometry, statistical inference illustrated with linear models, diagnostics for linear models, bootstrap and permutation inference, principal component analysis, smoothing and cross-validation.

  • STAT9910 - Sem in Adv Appl of Stat

    This seminar will be taken by doctoral candidates after the completion of most of their coursework. Topics vary from year to year and are chosen from advance probability, statistical inference, robust methods, and decision theory with principal emphasis on applications.

  • STAT9915 - Sem in Adv Appl of Stat

    This seminar-based course provides students with the opportunity to hone their data science skills and gain practical experience by working with a community organization on a data science problem of interest to the organization. Students will gain skills in problem formulation, collaboration with community organizations and communication of data science results. Students will work in groups on a data science problem of interest to a community organization.

  • STAT9950 - Dissertation

    Dissertation

  • STAT9999 - Independent Study

    Written permission of instructor and the department course coordinator required to enroll.

Awards and Honors

  • IMS Medallion Lecture, 2021
  • Sloan Fellowship, 2011
  • New World Silver Medal for Best PhD Thesis in Mathematical Sciences, 2007

Activity

Latest Research

Somabha Mukherjee, Divyansh Agarwal, Nancy Zhang, Bhaswar B. Bhattacharya (2022), Distribution-free multisample test based on optimal matching with applications to single cell genomics, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 117 (538), pp. 627-638.
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Wharton Magazine

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Wharton Magazine - 10/21/2019

Wharton Stories

Four people standing on a busy brick walkway, laughing and having a conversation, with blurred people walking in the background.Uniting Great Minds, Wharton’s Stat Bridge MA Program Takes Flight

A new program in Wharton’s Department of Statistics and Data Science offers advanced coursework and research experience for students who hope to earn a PhD but need additional preparation for admission to a statistics doctoral program.  The Bridge to a Doctorate Program in Statistics and Data Science is a two-year…

Wharton Stories - 09/13/2023
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