People

The lab brings together statisticians, computational biologists, and public health researchers.

Faculty

Huang (Frederick) Lin

Huang (Frederick) Lin, PhD

Principal Investigator · Assistant Professor of Biostatistics

Dr. Lin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. His research develops statistical and machine-learning methodology for compositional data analysis, multi-omics integration, causal inference, and explainable AI, with a primary focus on metagenomics and expanding applications to metabolomics and proteomics.

He is the author of ANCOM-BC (Nature Communications, 2020) and ANCOM-BC2 (Nature Methods, 2024), widely used methods for differential abundance analysis of microbiome data, and of SECOM (Nature Communications, 2022) for estimating taxa–taxa associations. His collaborative work spans cancer, HIV/AIDS, aging, environmental health, and maternal and child health.

Before joining Maryland he was a postdoctoral visiting fellow in biostatistics at the National Institutes of Health, first at NICHD, then at NIEHS, and a statistical scientist at Roche. He holds a PhD in Biostatistics from the University of Pittsburgh and a BS in Chemistry with a minor in Statistics from Xiamen University.

Appointments Assistant Professor, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, UMD (2023–present)
Affiliate Faculty, Brain and Behavior Institute (BBI)
Affiliate Faculty, Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM)
Affiliate Faculty, Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (NACS) Program
Education PhD Biostatistics, University of Pittsburgh (2020)
BS Chemistry, minor in Statistics, Xiamen University (2015)
Training Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow, Biostatistics, NIEHS (2022–2023)
Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow, Biostatistics, NICHD (2021–2022)
Editorial Associate Editor, Sankhya, Series B (2025–present)
Menglu Liang

Menglu Liang, PhD

Assistant Clinical Professor of Biostatistics

Dr. Liang is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and a close collaborator of the lab. She teaches the department's core biostatistics and data sequence, covering biostatistical methods, statistical programming, and public health data management.

Teaching EPIB 650, Biostatistics I
EPIB 697, Public Health Data Management
EPIB 463, Introduction to Biostatistical Programming
Education PhD Biostatistics, Pennsylvania State University (2023)
MS Biostatistics, University of Minnesota (2019)
ScM Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University (2016)
Team

Graduate students

Names and photographs are added as students join the lab.

Photo

To be announced

PhD Student, Biostatistics

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To be announced

MS Student, Biostatistics

Undergraduate & high school researchers

The lab hosts undergraduate and high school researchers throughout the year, through UMD programs and independent study. Current researchers are listed here as they join.

Collaborators

Our methodological work is developed alongside collaborators across public health, medicine, and the biological sciences.