Research Interests

Dr. Wenpin Hou is an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) in the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics at the Duke University School of Medicine, and an affiliated member of the New York Genome Center (NYGC). To support ongoing research initiatives, she maintains an appointment as a tenure-track Assistant Professor (on research leave) in the Department of Biostatistics at Columbia University, where she remains an affiliated member of the Data Science Institute.

Dr. Hou engineers domain-specific AI models and mechanistic statistical frameworks to resolve the intricate, cell-state-specific logic of gene regulatory programs. By reconstructing high-dimensional spatiotemporal profiles from multiomics data, her group models system-level regulatory dynamics across diverse tissues and clinical conditions, charting programmatic regulatory changes in human diseases to identify actionable interventions.

Her group focuses on developing:

• Statistical models for temporal and spatial dynamics in single-cell and spatial omics data
• Computational methods for inferring DNA methylation and its spatial landscape
• Foundation models for modeling gene regulatory activity
• Generative pre-trained transformer approaches for biomedical applications (e.g., single-cell annotation, image analysis, genomics Q&A)

Awards and Recognition

• 2025 Mentor of the Year from Columbia University Irving Medical Center in January 2026.
• Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) for Early Stage Investigators (R35) from NIH/NIGMS in September 2023.
• NIH Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00) from NIH/NHGRI in March 2021.

Collaborations

Dr. Hou collaborates across diverse fields, including cancer, immunology, infectious diseases, and more. She is a member of the ENCODE4 consortium, contributing to advanced single-cell genomic analysis.

Education and Training

Dr. Hou received her Ph.D. in Mathematics from The University of Hong Kong in 2017, mentored by Prof. Wai-Ki Ching and supported by the University Postgraduate Fellowship and Postgraduate Scholarship. She completed postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University across Biostatistics and Computer Science in 2022, mentored by faculty including Prof. Stephanie Hicks, Hongkai Ji, Andrew Feinberg, Suchi Saria, and Aravinda Chakravarti. She earned her B.Sc. in Computational Mathematics from Sun Yat-sen University in 2013.

For Prospective Students

She is currently seeking PhD students eager to contribute to innovative research projects on genomics. Please directly apply through the PhD program and and list her name as your preferred mentor.

If you are interested in a research position (e.g. research assistant, visiting student, practicum), please send her your CV.

News & Media

• Columbia News: A Mathematician Uses AI to Find Meaning in Genomic Data
• Columbia News: AI Comes of Age: Transforming Public Health Research
• Announcements: Wenpin Hou Awarded 2025 Mentor of the Year at Columbia University Irving Medical Center

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