Research & Awards

Research Interests

• Causal Inference
• Semi-supervised Learning
• High-dimensional Statistics
• Machine Learning
• Precision Medicine

Publications (# alphabetical order, * co-first author, __ supervised student)

• Kai Chen and Yuqian Zhang (2025). Semi-supervised linear regression: enhancing efficiency and robustness in high dimensions. Biometrics, 81(3), ujaf113. (Kai received the Second Prize for Outstanding Papers in the the 8th National Statistics Doctoral Academic Forum)
• Jelena Bradic#, Weijie Ji#, and Yuqian Zhang# (2024). High-dimensional inference for dynamic treatment effects. The Annals of Statistics, 52(2), 415-440.
• Yuqian Zhang*, Abhishek Chakrabortty*, and Jelena Bradic* (2023). Double robust semi-supervised inference for the mean: Selection bias under MAR labeling with decaying overlap. Information and Inference: A Journal of the IMA, 12(3), 2066-2159.
• Yuqian Zhang and Jelena Bradic (2022). High-dimensional semi-supervised learning: in search of optimal inference of the mean. Biometrika, 109(2), 387-403. (This paper received the 2021 Best Student Paper Award from the ASA Nonparametric Statistics Section)

Preprints

• Zhen Qi and Yuqian Zhang (2026). Quadruply robust methods for causal mediation analysis. arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.22592.
• Yilizhati Anniwaer and Yuqian Zhang (2025). Semi-supervised inference for treatment heterogeneity. arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.05048. (Yilizhati received the Third Prize for Outstanding Papers in the the 9th National Statistics Doctoral Academic Forum)
• Kai Chen and Yuqian Zhang (2025). Balancing utility and cost in dynamic treatment regimes. arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.17360. Reject and resubmit at JRSSB.
• Facheng Yu, Zhen Qi, and Yuqian Zhang (2024). Data integration using covariate summaries from external sources. arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.15691.
• Yuqian Zhang and Jelena Bradic (2024). Causal inference through multi-stage learning and doubly robust deep neural networks. arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.08560.
• Yuqian Zhang, Weijie Ji, and Jelena Bradic (2024). Adaptive Split Balancing for Optimal Random Forest. arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.11228.
• Yuqian Zhang*, Abhishek Chakrabortty*, and Jelena Bradic* (2023). The Decaying Missing-at-Random Framework: Doubly Robust Causal Inference with Partially Labeled Data. arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.12789.
• Yuqian Zhang, Weijie Ji, and Jelena Bradic (2021). Dynamic treatment effects: high-dimensional inference under model misspecification. arXiv preprint arxiv:2111.06818. Major revision at JRSSB. (This paper received the ICSA 2025 China Conference Junior Researcher Award)

Awards and Honors

• Junior Researcher Award, International Chinese Statistical Association, 2025
• Best Student Paper Award (Nonparametric Statistics Section), American Statistical Association, 2021
• Teaching Assistant Award, Department of Mathematics, UC San Diego, 2019-2020
• Friends of the International Center Scholarship, UC San Diego, 2019
• Outstanding Graduate, Wuhan University, 2016

Research Grants

• NSFC the Young Scientists Fund. "Statistical Inference based on High-dimensional Semi-supervised Data". PI.
• NSFC the General Fund. "Nonparametric Modeling and Inference for Continuous Treatment Effect". Co-investigator (with Zheng Zhang).

Presentations

• Sanya Workshop on Causality and Machine Learning, January 2026
• 2025 Xiamen University Symposium on Modern Statistics, December 2025
• School of Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, December 2025
• 2025 International Conference on Data Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, December 2025
• School of Statistics & Institute of Statistics and Big Data, Renmin University of China, September 2025
• The 8th International Conference on Econometrics and Statistics, August 2025
• The 3rd Chinese Causal Inference Conference, July 2025
• ICSA 2025 China Conference, June 2025
• School of Mathematics and Statistics, Wuhan University, June 2025
• 2025 Annual Meeting of the CAAS Committee on Multivariate Analysis Application, June 2025
• School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, June 2025
• School of Statistics, Capital University of Economics and Business, May 2025
• School of Statistics & Institute of Statistics and Big Data, Renmin University of China, April 2025
• School of Statistics, East China Normal University, April 2025
• School of Mathematical Sciences, Tongji University, April 2025
• School of Management, Fudan University, April 2025
• School of Statistics and Mathematics, Central University of Finance and Economics, March 2025
• Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, February 2025
• School of Mathematics and Statistics, Wuhan University, January 2025
• Causal Inference: Bridging Theory and Practice, January 2025
• The 18th International Joint Conference CFE-CMStatistics, December 2024
• The 1st Macau International Conference on Business Intelligence and Analytics, December 2024
• School of Statistics and Data Science, Nankai University, December 2024
• School of Statistics and Management, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, November 2024
• The 2nd International Conference on Machine Learning and Statistics, August 2024
• Joint Conference on Statistics and Data Science in China, July 2024
• IMS-China International Conference on Statistics and Probability, July 2024
• ICSA 2024 China Conference, June 2024
• School of Statistics and Data Science, Nankai University, May 2024
• School of Management, Fudan University, April 2024
• School of Statistics and Management, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, April 2024
• The 2nd Chinese Causal Inference Conference, March 2024
• School of Statistics & Institute of Statistics and Big Data, Renmin University of China, November 2023
• IMS New Researcher Conference, August 2023
• Joint Conference on Statistics and Data Science in China, July 2023
• ICSA 2023 China Conference, June 2023
• The 1st Chinese Causal Inference Conference, May 2023
• School of Mathematics and Statistics, Wuhan University, April 2023
• School of Data Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, March 2023
• Department of Applied Mathematics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, September 2022
• Interdisciplinary Seminar on "Data Science and Life and Health", October 2022
• The 5th International Conference on Econometrics and Statistics, June 2022
• Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, UC San Diego, April 2022
• ENAR 2022 Spring Meeting, March 2022
• 2021 Joint Statistical Meetings, August 2021