Spotlight on New PhD Students
New PhD Students
![Portrait of Taeyoung Chang](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/img_5838_taeyoung_chang_870_580.3.png?h=2d235432&itok=jY0HEeP6)
Previous Institution(s): Seoul National University; Yonsei University
Research Interests: Statistical machine learning
Hobbies: Playing tennis or badminton.
![Headshot of Henry Chukwuma](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/henry_chukwuma_lm_00994.png?h=2d235432&itok=eNqr4YDI)
Previous Institution(s): Federal University of Technology Owerri, Nigeria.
Research Interests: Statistical genetics and genomics, biological and environmental applications, and statistical applications in health science
Hobbies: Soccer, traveling, hiking, and cooking.
![Headshot of Dongyu Cui](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/lm_01300_dongyu_cui_870_580.png?h=2d235432&itok=GTM53Iv6)
Previous Institution(s): Zhejiang University
Research Interests: I am still exploring my research interests
![Headshot of Cedric Dedina](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/cedric_dedina_headshot_870_580.png?h=2d235432&itok=HbKT0oBw)
Previous Institution(s): University of Minnesota Twin Cities - College of Science and Engineering
Research Interests: I am still exploring my research interests
Hobbies: Travel, aerial arts, video games, board games, and hikes.
![Headshot of Aidan Dunleavy](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/aidan_dunleavy_lm_00967_870_580.png?h=2d235432&itok=jp0crPbB)
Previous Institution(s): Purdue University Northwest
Research Interests: Genetics, genomics, spatial transcriptomics, and topological machine learning (wine data)
Hobbies: Cooking and playing with the dog.
![Headshot of Chenwei Hua](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/photo_chen-wei.jpg?h=04d92ac6&itok=W0H38g-g)
Previous Institution(s): Institute of Statistical Science, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Research Interests: Network analysis
Hobbies: Video games, piano, and table tennis.
![Headshot of Shreya Pramanik](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/img_20220809_013214959.jpg?h=7b1eba8e&itok=R80dYf8X)
Previous Institution(s): Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur; Presidency University, Kolkata
Research Interests: Statistical machine learning and its application in AI and engineering
Hobbies: Hiking, watching soccer games, and cooking.
![Portrait of Xieheng Wang](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/img_2517_xieheng_wang_870_580_2.png?h=e95fc175&itok=pBYU7bBO)
Previous Institution(s): Tsinghua University
Research Interests: Statistical genetics, causal Inference and high dimensional statistics
Hobbies: Orienteering (and anything in the wild), Go (the game), and playing video games.
![Portrait of Rui Zhang](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/rui_zhang_870_580.png?h=e75c301f&itok=GpHIOtlr)
Previous Institution(s): Lanzhou University; Fudan University
Research Interests: I am still exploring my research interests
Hobbies: Baking and skiing.