Jingyi Jessica Li (李婧翌) is a statistician and computational biologist whose research bridges data science and biomedical science, with a focus on developing reliable and interpretable statistical methods for analyzing complex biological data. Her work has uncovered hidden patterns in gene regulation and emphasized the importance of statistical rigor in ensuring that scientific discoveries are trustworthy, even when based on noisy or high-dimensional data. She strongly believes that statistics is not merely a supporting tool but a core driver of progress in biology and medicine.

Dr. Li is currently Professor and Program Head of Biostatistics at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, where she holds the Donald and Janet K. Guthrie Endowed Chair in Statistics, and is an Affiliate Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Washington. From 2013 to 2025, she was a faculty member at UCLA, serving as Professor of Statistics and Data Science with joint appointments in Biostatistics, Computational Medicine, and Human Genetics. She was also an active member of UCLA’s Bioinformatics Ph.D. program and the Gene Regulation Program of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Li received her Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2013, where she worked with Peter J. Bickel and Haiyan Huang, and her B.S. in Biological Sciences (summa cum laude) from Tsinghua University in 2007. Her contributions have been recognized with numerous honors, including the NSF CAREER Award, Sloan Research Fellowship, ISCB Overton Prize, COPSS Emerging Leaders Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, and Mortimer Spiegelman Award.