MATRIX Lab UMD SPH

Mentoring

The work our students and mentees do: theses, first-author papers, posters, and where they go next.

Output

Student-led papers

Every student in the lab owns a project with a clear methodological contribution, not a support role on someone else's paper. Papers below have a mentee as first author.

  • Beyond bacteria: a multi-omics view of the gut–brain axis in Parkinson's disease

    Han H, Luo O, Li K, Rahaman S, Ok EU, Zhang L, Liang M, Lin H.

    Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, 2026. Under revision.

    Grew out of a meta-analysis of gut microbiome dysbiosis in Parkinson's disease begun in the ADAPT summer program, and expanded into a full multi-omics analysis.

    First author: student Multi-omics All publications

Doctoral advising

Dissertation committees

  • Dermal Exposures to Bacteria Among Limited-Contact Water Recreationists on the Anacostia River and Potential Behavioral Drivers of Illness Risk

    Taiwo Rebecca Alawode · PhD

    Role: Committee member

    Defended 2026

  • Statistical Methods for Causal Inference and Representation Learning in High-Dimensional Biomedical Data

    Farrah Mariam Askari · PhD

    Role: Committee member

    Defended 2026Causal inference

  • Novel Multivariate Bayesian Variable Selection Methods with Application to Genetic Fine Mapping

    Travis Anthony Canida · PhD

    Role: Committee member

    Defended 2025

  • Variable Selection and Causal Discovery Methods with Application in Noncoding RNA Regulation of Gene Expression

    Hongjie Ke · PhD

    Role: Committee member

    Defended 2024Causal discovery

Master's advising

Capstones

  • Effect of Risky Sexual Behavior and Associated Gut Microbiome Changes on Susceptibility to HIV in MSM

    Meaghan Sue Price · Master's capstone

    Role: Committee member · 2022

    Coauthor on the resulting paper in Communications Biology (2024).

    Completed 2022Led to publication

  • The Association of Sexual Behavior and Systemic Inflammation with Increased Susceptibility to HIV-1 Infection in MSM

    Grace Abror · Master's capstone

    Role: Committee member · 2021

    Coauthor on the resulting paper in Communications Biology (2024).

    Completed 2021Led to publication

Undergraduate & high school

Early-career mentoring

The lab takes on undergraduate and high school researchers throughout the year, through structured UMD programs and through independent study. Projects are scoped so that a student can carry one from a question to a result, and several have continued into coauthored papers.

  • Gut Microbiome Dysbiosis and its Impact on Parkinson's Disease: Insights from Meta-Analysis

    Kevin Li · Undergraduate researcher · Aging, Diversity and Professional Development (ADAPT) Program

    Role: Mentor · 2024

    Continued into a coauthored multi-omics paper on the gut–brain axis in Parkinson's disease.

    Completed 2024Led to publication

How we work together

Weekly one-on-ones

A standing meeting with every mentee, plus a lab meeting where work in progress gets read carefully rather than politely.

Ownership from the start

Students drive their own project and are first author on it. Coauthorship on collaborative papers comes in addition, not instead.

Methodology as the backbone, code as a deliverable

Every project makes a statistical or machine-learning contribution first. The reproducible code that implements it is part of the deliverable, not an afterthought.

Conferences and networks

Mentees present at ENAR, JSM, or domain meetings, and are introduced to collaborators rather than kept behind the PI.