Algorithms & microbial life
Biography
I am a computational microbiologist developing algorithms and open-source software for large-scale genomics, metagenomics, and microbiome analysis. I work at the intersection of probabilistic data structures, high-performance computing, and microbial ecology.
My research turns large biological datasets into tractable scientific questions. I develop methods for genome search, phylogenetic community comparisons, and biological network embedding, including DartUniFrac, GSearch, and Annembed. I also study microbial populations through long-read metagenomics and genome-resolved ecology.
I received my Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from Georgia Tech in 2024, following an M.S. at Tsinghua University. My postdoctoral research at UC San Diego (2024–2026) focused on scalable methods for microbiome and genomic analysis. Much of my software is written in Rust.
Research Interests
- Probabilistic data structures & algorithms
- Genomics & long-read metagenomics
- Microbiome analysis & microbial ecology
- Biological network embedding
- High-performance scientific computing
Education
- Ph.D. in BioinformaticsGeorgia Institute of Technology
- M.S. in Environmental Science
and EngineeringTsinghua University - B.S. in Environmental ScienceNanjing Agricultural University
Publications
BibTeX* First or co-first author.
Research Software
GitHubGSearch
Fast genome search combining k-mer hashing and approximate nearest-neighbor graphs.
Genome informaticsAnnembed
Efficient graph embedding and dimensionality reduction for large biological datasets.
Biological data analysisMore software & libraries
Contributions
Presentations & Posters
Promiscuous and unbiased recombination underlies the sequence-discrete species of the SAR11 lineage in the deep ocean
Poster · ASM Microbe · Atlanta, USA
High-performance parallel and concurrent programming for bioinformatics and computational biology
Poster · International Summer School on High Performance Computing · Atlanta, USA
Time-series metagenomics enables quantification of the rare biosphere to natural disturbances
Poster · ASM Microbe · Washington, DC, USA
Contact
jiz322@ucsd.eduSan Diego, California, USA