About myself
I received my PhD in computational biology (official program name: Quantitative and Computational Biosciences) from Baylor College of Medicine in 2024. I am currently completing an 1-year postdoctoral contract at Northwestern University, and will be moving to Brussels, Belgium for a new postdoc position soon.
Professional experiences
I started off my research journey in undergrad with cancer research, and was grateful that my undergrad work somehow resulted in several co-authored papers despite me having to learn and make lots of mistakes along the way.
For my PhD, I focused on various projects pertinent to interpretable machine learning due to my mentor’s training background. the projects were a bit all over the place, but they could be tied together via the themes of “innovative machine learning research” and “DNA methylation”. This is also when I really got into programming, and I’m grateful for all the help I received along the way.
My current postdoc focuses on something slightly different (generative AI: not that I’m an expert though), but I look forward to going back to methylation research soon.
Personal/hobbies/etc
As someone who grew up during the golden age of Niconico Douga and Bilibili (before it became “Chinese YouTube”), I… have some unique interests, most of them countercultural.
Some of my more normal interests involve visiting museums, restaurants, and generally trying out different things, whatever is “cool”. Nerdier interests include me visiting every arcade in Houston and Chicago, touring various clubs just to find the best DJs, etc…
I have learned how to make fairly decent coffee, my daily driver is a French press from Bodum. I learned a few Melbourne shuffle moves for a particular arcade cab. I also have two cats, although you might not see much of them here.
Questions you may have for me
Can I get a copy of your X paper?
Just email me if you need one. As a heads up: I may not have the copies of the papers either.
Are you XXX whom I know from YYY?
Short answer: Most likely, no. Long answer below:
I am of Chinese origin and is named as such; my name is actually very unique (bonus points if you could guess the characters). However, since the Chinese language is largely based around characters, diversity in names is mostly lost when these names are written in alphabets. Add that to the fact that the “Zi” character is very popular for naming purposes, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are hundreds of “Zian Liu"s in the English-speaking parts of the world.
I believe there is at least one other publishing scientist named “Zian Liu” who may be someone you’re looking for. If you found an interesting paper by “Liu Z”, most likely it wasn’t published by me. I could help you find the person if you need help though.
How should I refer to you?
“Zian” is fine.
I’ve had some… incidents with other Dr. Lius, and certainly don’t want to be someone like that myself. Because of this, please only refer to me as “Dr. Liu” if it is a formal situation or if you are required to do so.
Are there photos for you/what do you look like?
I don’t really feel like sharing my photos much, which is why there is none on this website. If you need a photo of me for professional reasons, please email me.
Do you have a blog?
Not professionally, which is why I consider this website more as a “portfolio” and establishing a way to contact me.
Why does this website look like this?
If you’re referring to the design of this: just be glad you haven’t seen my “personal” site yet!
There are fancier hugo themes out there; most of them probably look “nicer” and more “professional” than the one I am using. I considered something else, but I simply can’t stomach using a theme loaded with JavaScript or other distractions as it runs opposite of my own interests in privacy. This site may be simple, but I think it does the job.