Tian Zheng

Tian Zheng

Professor of Statistics & Department Chair

Department of Statistics, Columbia University

Biography

Professor Tian Zheng develops novel methods for exploring and understanding patterns in complex data from different application domains. She is passionate about education and mentoring, and how they hold great potential in driving convergence and broadening participation. Professor Zheng’s research has been recognized by the 2008 Outstanding Statistical Application Award from the American Statistical Association (ASA), the Mitchell Prize from ISBA, and a Google research award. She became a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) in 2014, a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) in 2022, and a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2024. From 2017-2020, she was associate director for education at Columbia Data Science Institute. Professor Zheng is the recipient of the 2017 Columbia Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. In 2021, she was recognized with a Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award that recognizes the excellence of faculty as teachers and mentors of both undergraduate and graduate students.

Interests
  • Applied Statistics and Data Science
  • Statistical Machine Learning.
  • Research-Education Integration
Education
  • PhD in Statistics, 2002

    Columbia University

  • BSc in Applied Statistics (minor in Computer Science), 1998

    Tsinghua University

Projects

*
Learning the Earth with AI and Physics.
Learning the Earth with Artificial Intelligence and Physics (LEAP) is an NSF Science and Technology Center (STC) launched in 2021. LEAP’s mission is to increase the reliability, utility, and reach of climate projections through the integration of climate and data science.
Applied Data Science at Columbia
Applied Data Science at Columbia is a project-based learning course that started in 2016. It employs the common task framework and runs 5 mini project cycles during one semester to give students a broad exposure to various areas in data science. Projects are developed and updated each year, drawing inspirations from active research, challenges and interesting public datasets.
Collaboratory at Columbia - An Aspen Grove of Data Science Education
The Collaboratory is both a set of “data science in context” educational approaches, as well as a meta-model for an accelerator program that allows different institutions to respond flexibly to their own disciplinary heterogeneity in terms of data science educational needs. The novelty of the Collaboratory lies in its crowd-sourcing approach to creating new data science pedagogy and its ability to kindle transdisciplinary collaboration in doing so. Read our Havard Data Science Review article to learn more.

Contact and Directions

  • tian.zheng@columbia.edu
  • 212-851-2134
  • 1255 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027
  • Room 1004 SSW - Enter the School of Social Work building, take elevator to the 10th floor. Once out of the elevator, walk through the glass doors, turn left immediately, and then turn left to enter the administrative quarter. Room 1004 is right there.