Profile
- Lab Role
- Principal Investigator
- Department/Program
- Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University
- Research Interests
- Ecological modeling, machine learning, multi-omics data integration, experimental microbiome systems, precision nutrition, and bacteria-phage interactions
- Contact me about
- Graduate and undergraduate research, postdoctoral opportunities, collaborations, microbiome ecology, computational biology, etc.
- Contact
- wang7403@purdue.edu
- Hobbies
- Board gaming, hiking, and traveling
Bio
I am a physicist by training, having earned my Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2021. My doctoral thesis, supervised by Prof. Sergei Maslov, focused on how microbial interactions, such as cross-feeding and predator-prey interactions, impact the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of microbial communities.
During my postdoctoral training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, working under the supervision of Prof. Yang-Yu Liu, my research merged ecological theories and omics data to decode organizing principles of microbial communities, with a special interest in human gut microbiomes. In addition to theoretical modeling, I developed deep-learning methods aimed at precision nutrition.
Currently, our research group focuses on uncovering interactions among diet, microbes, metabolites, phages, and the host through a combination of computational and experimental approaches. On the computational side, we analyze multi-omics datasets, model ecological dynamics of microbiomes, and develop machine-learning tools. Experimentally, we use microbial cultures to validate computationally inferred interactions and to design therapeutic strategies based on synthetic microbial communities.
Experience
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University
August 2025 – Present
Research focused on diet–microbe–metabolite–host interactions.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
June 2021 – May 2025
Worked in the lab of Prof. Yang-Yu Liu on advanced computational methods for microbiome-targeted translational research, including:
- Predicting metabolomic profiles through deep-learning models
- Creating predictive models suitable for precision nutrition
- Leveraging metaproteome data to understand functional redundancy
- Advancing omics-based techniques for disease diagnosis
Graduate Research Assistant
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
January 2017 – May 2021
Worked with Prof. Sergei Maslov on modeling interactions within microbial communities to understand ecological and evolutionary dynamics, including:
- Community assembly influenced by microbial cooperative interactions
- Predator–prey interactions between microbes and phages
- Prediction of metabolomic profiles using ecological models
Graduate Teaching Assistant
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
August 2014 – December 2016
Education
Doctor of Philosophy in Physics
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Advisor: Prof. Sergei Maslov
2014 – 2021