Panel session 7: Friday, June 7 — 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
Chair
Qiongshi Lu
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Qiongshi “Q” Lu received his BS in mathematics from Tsinghua University in 2012 and PhD in biostatistics from Yale University in 2017. In 2017, he was appointed in the Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics at University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Lu’s research focuses on developing statistical and computational methods to study complex trait genetics. In particular, he is interested in noncoding genome annotation, genetic risk prediction, genetic correlation estimation, and gene-environment interaction.
Panelists
Robel Alemu
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Robel Alemu is a postdoctoral research scientist at UCLA. He also holds a concurrent visiting research fellowships at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Adelaide University’s Medical School. His research focuses on advancing computational tools that improve the predictive power of polygenic risk scores (PRS) for a range of complex behavioral traits in various ancestral populations. He is passionate about understanding the effects of and interplay between modifiable (lifestyle and environmental) and epi(genetics) risk factors on human behavior and health conditions.
Presentation or paper
Relative predictive performance of polygenic indexes (PGIs) across diverse ancestral populations
Zijie Zhao
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Zijie is a 5th year PhD candidate in biomedical data science program at Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His academic training includes statistical inference, generalized linear model, machine learning, and general genetics. Zijie conducts methodological research in the field of statistical genetics and has extensively worked on the topic of genetic risk prediction and polygenic risk score. He is also interested in the application of polygenic risk score.
Presentation or paper
Controlling for polygenic genetic confounding in epidemiologic association studies
Nicolau Martin Bassols
University of Bologna
Nicolau Martin Bassols is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Economics of the University of Bologna. He earned his PhD from Monash University’s Centre of Health Economics in 2022. He specialize in applied microeconomics and microeconometrics, with a focus on health, labor economics, and social genomics. His work explores the early origins and developmental trajectory of health and human capital. He investigate the impact of genetics, familial investments, and early childhood interventions on health and economic disparities.
Presentation or paper
The impact of mental health on labour market outcomes