Yikun’s Website

I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Statistics at University of Washington (UW), Seattle, where I am fortunate to be advised by Prof. Yen-Chi Chen. I also work with Prof. Rafael S. de Souza and Prof. Alexander Giessing during my graduate studies. During 2019-2020, I served as the Master Student Representative for our department. Before joining UW, I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) in 2018. During my undergraduate, I was also selected as an honor student at the Yat-Sen Honor College, an elite liberal undergraduate institution of SYSU.

Research Interests

My current theoretical research interests are on nonparametric statistics (kernel smoothing), optimization on nonlinear manifolds, and high-dimensional inference with missing data. On the applied side, I am broadly interested in challenging problems in astronomy, with a focus on how to detect and analyze the cosmic web in a statistically motivated way.

Education

• Ph.D. in Statistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Sep 2022 – Present
• M.S. in Statistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Sep 2018 – Mar 2020
• B.S. in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, Sun Yat-Sen University, Aug 2014 – Jun 2018
• Exchange Student in Mathematics and Statistics, University of California, Berkeley, Fall 2016
• Honor Student in Applied Mathematics Group, Yat-Sen Honor College, Sun Yat-Sen University, Sep 2015 – Jun 2018