Tianyin Zhou
USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Doctor of Philosophy, Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
Faculty Advisor: Remo Rohs

As a graduate student, Tianyin developed the methodology for predicting local DNA shape features on a genomic scale. This approach has been described as a breakthrough in genome research because it makes possible the analysis of sequencing data in 3D, which more accurately reflects the molecular mechanisms and physical interactions involved in recognizing the double helix by proteins. Tianyin has co-published six papers in journals such as Cell and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. His work has received four significant paper awards, including several Top-10 Paper Awards from the International Society for Computational Biology. Tianyin also received the Harrison M. Kurtz Award given to the most outstanding Ph.D. student in the biological sciences at USC. He was recently hired by Google where he will apply machine learning in search algorithms.

Congratulations, Tianyin!