Member Biography

I am an Associate Professor (with tenure) in the Department of Pharmacy Practice and serve as the AI Director for the College of Pharmacy at Purdue University College of Pharmacy. I am also an Investigator at the Regenstrief Institute and hold an adjunct faculty appointment in the Department of Biostatistics and Health Data Science at the Indiana University School of Medicine. My research focuses on pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacoinformatics, with primary emphases on cardiometabolic diseases, neurodegenerative conditions, and cancer, with the overarching goal of advancing precision therapeutics. My work leverages large-scale real-world data (RWD) sources (e.g., EHRs and insurance claims) and develops advanced analytical pipelines (e.g., AI-powered target trial emulation, causal discovery and inference modeling, and high-throughput screening for drug–drug interactions and safety signals) and aims to: (1) conduct rigorous causal evaluations of drug effectiveness, safety, repositioning opportunities, and heterogeneous treatment effects (e.g., NIDDK R01 DK133465); (2) develop intelligent clinical decision support tools for integration into clinical care (e.g., NIA R01 AG089445); and (3) improve RWD quality for pharmaceutical evaluation through methodological and tool development (e.g., identifying patients with high care continuity in EHRs, adapting common data models, and conducting data quality assessment studies within target trial emulation frameworks). I have authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications, including articles in leading journals such as Annals of Internal Medicine, Nature Communications, and JAMA Oncology. My current and future research program centers on elucidating the role of GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) in cancer prevention and treatment, leveraging real-world data to evaluate effectiveness, safety, and underlying mechanisms. Another area of interest is focused on the real-world evaluation of immunotherapy in oncology, with particular emphasis on effectiveness, safety, and drug–drug interactions in diverse cancer patient populations.

Post-doctoral Fellowship - University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 2020

Ph.D. - University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 2019

M.P.H. - University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 2016

M.D. - Peking University, Beijing, China 2014

Residency - Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing, China 2014