Yu (Uni) Zhang

Research at the Highlander Lab

My PhD research focuses on the genetics and breeding of global pig breeds. My starting point is to perform population genetics research using the succinct tree sequencing data format. After that, I will conduct quantitative genetic investigations further down the line and ultimately assist with breeding.

Background

For the last seven years, I have been educated at China Agriculture University. My major was Animal Science, and in third year, I minored the Data Science. My undergraduate thesis is the study on genetic diversity and degree of endangerment on indigenous Chinese breeds. I mainly programmed software for estimating effective population size simply with abundant output. Then, as I worked toward my master's degree, I was involved in research on Inbreeding depression of complex trait and construction on barcode SNP Database of Chinese Native Pigs by machine learning technologies.