QCB ALUMNI
CLASSES 2013 - 2017
The exposure to a breadth of research topics and the rigorous academic training during my years at QCB fostered a deep passion within me for human genomics, independent and well-rounded problem-solving skills, and a strong work ethic.
JIANQHAN (JENNY) QU
CLASS OF 2017
Join the growing ranks of QBIO alumni now working at the highest levels of industry centered on solving complex problems using large scale data analysis.
From world class research facilities including the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Broad Institute in Boston to software engineering at Google and Facebook, QCB alumni are among the most highly sought-after graduates entering the workforce today.
Long Pei PhD‘17
Dr. Long Pei is a Senior Software Engineer at Apple. The knowledge and skills he received during his Ph.D. studies at QCB helped him prepare for his career. He said his time at QCB was a precious gift to enjoy science and make lifelong friends.
Jianghan (Jenny) Qu PhD‘17
Dr. Jianghan ‘Jenny’ Qu received her PhD in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics in 2017. She is currently a Bioinformatics Scientist at Veracyte, working on in-vitro diagnostics product development. Jenny says that the exposure to a breadth of research topics and the rigorous academic training during her years at QCB have fostered her deep passion for human genomics, independent and well-rounded problem-solving skills, and strong work ethic. Jenny adds that she made many great friends at USC who were from different cultural and academic backgrounds.
Jie (Jessie) Ren PhD‘17
Dr. Jie ‘Jessie’ Ren received her PhD in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics in 2017 and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in QCB. Jessie was awarded the USC PhD Achievement Award. She joined Google in 2018 and is now a Research Scientist at Google Brain. The focus of her research has been machine learning and statistical learning in biological and medical problems, and uncertainty and robustness in deep learning.
Carolina Dantas PhD ‘16
Dr. Ana Carolina Dantas Machado is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar at UC San Diego where she is studying how microbiome and circadian changes can affect metabolism and health. The computational skills she learned in QCB were the foundations for her to expand her field of research and explore health and disease states through a multi-omics approach. Carolina is also an advisory panel member for the National Institute of Health’s All of Us Research Program that builds the most diverse health database.
Lin Yang PhD‘16
Dr. Lin Yang received his PhD in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics in 2014. During his PhD studies, he was awarded the USC PhD Achievement Award and a Dan David Fellowship by the Dan David Foundation and Tel Aviv University. Lin is a Software Engineer at Google where he works on building machine learning systems to help organize the world’s personal photos and videos.
Ke Gong PhD ‘15
Dr. Ke Gong received his PhD in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics in 2015. He is currently working as a Senior Data Science Manager at Facebook.
Iris Dror PhD‘15
Dr. Iris Dror was as a Visiting Student from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology who spent half her PhD studies at QCB from 2011-2013. She says that having a PhD co-advisor at QCB greatly expanded her scientific knowledge and allowed her to collaborate with some of the top scientists in this field. Iris is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA where she studies the relationship between long noncoding RNAs, gene regulation and the three-dimensional organization of the genome.
Tianyin Zhou PhD ‘14
Dr. Tianyin Zhou received his PhD in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics in 2014. For his PhD work, he was awarded the USC PhD Achievement Award. After graduation, Tianyin joined Google as a Software Engineer. He is currently an Engineering Manager working primarily on machine learning and recommendation systems. Tianyin acknowledges the comprehensive training he received in QCB in statistics and machine learning and says that the transferrable skills he acquired from this training enabled him to thrive as a Software Engineer at Google.
Qiang Song PhD‘13
Dr. Qiang Song received a PhD in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics in 2013. Post graduation, he worked on data science and machine learning with applications in fraud detection, high-performance computing resource allocation, assortment planning and catalog quality in the industry. He currently works as an Applied Scientist at Amazon.