I am Hugh Zheng, a statistician who recently completed my Ph.D. in Statistics, advised by Dr. Leo L. Duan. My papers before October 2026 are published under Yu Zheng. I am currently a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Statistics at Texas A&M University, working with Dr. Bani Mallick.
I am drawn to statistical problems that are at once mathematically challenging and scientifically motivated. In particular, I am interested in both methodology and theory related to combinatorial problems and structured data, such as clustering, variable selection, and integer-valued data under combinatorial constraints (e.g. matching data). I am deeply interested in both method innovation as well as asymptotic theory for statistical and machine learning methods. My research outputs in the past few years include statistical modeling of combinatorial response data (JASA, 2026), clustering consistency for Bayesian spanning-forest models (Bernoulli, revision submitted), anti-correlation Gaussian data augmentation for L1-ball-type models such as soft-thresholded Gaussian process models (JCGS, 2025), and a sole-author paper on the order-mass identity of rooted forests, giving a direct proof of the extended Aldous–Broder theorem, machine-checked in Lean 4 (SIAM Journal on Mathematics of Data Science, submitted).
Beyond statistical research, I am interested in software development and AI engineering. The goal is to incorporate reusable code and AI tools into my workflows for better efficiency and performance, while also helping the community. I maintain open-source tools including latex2arxiv, latex2ufdissertation, NoteBuilder, academic-application-tracker, combinatorial-regression, combreg (R package), aldous-broder-lean (Lean 4 proofs) and Anti-correlation-Gaussian.
Research Interests
- Asymptotic theory (ergodicity, consistency, convergence rates)
- Model-based clustering
- Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)
- Combinatorial and structured data
- Random graphs
- Variable selection
Education
Ph.D. in Statistics, 2021-2026
University of Florida
B.S. in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, 2016-2020
Minor in Business Administration, 2018-2020
University of Science and Technology of China
Work Experience
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Sep 2026 - Present
Department of Statistics, Texas A&M University
Quantitative Research Intern, Jun 2024 - Aug 2024
Susquehanna International Group (SIG)
Awards
Katzoff Fellowship Award, 2023-2026
Department of Statistics, University of Florida
Mendenhall Award, 2023 (top-performing first-year Ph.D. student)
Department of Statistics, University of Florida
Conference Travel Awards: JSM 2023; Theory and Foundations of Statistics, FSU 2024