Department Chair/Professor

Dr. Zhiping Weng is a Professor and Chair in the Genomics and Computational Biology Department and Li Weibo Chair in Biomedical Research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In her institutional role as Director of the Department of Genomics and Computational Biology, Dr. Weng leads all aspects of research, education, and professional development of the faculty, students, and staff in the Program. She received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1992 and her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University in 1997. Dr. Weng’s scientific research and biomedical investigations focus on genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, and molecular recognition. Her laboratory develops and applies cutting-edge computational and statistical methods to study biological problems with large amounts of data, e.g., gene regulation by transcriptional and post-transcriptional mechanisms and protein-protein interaction. She has developed a systematic approach to defining regulatory elements in the human and mouse genomes based on a select set of predictive epigenetic signals and annotating the activities of these elements across hundreds of cell and tissue types. Her lab has also developed a powerful engineering platform to allow biomedical and clinical scientists to interrogate individual elements and their myriads of annotations, including the variations that are associated with human diseases. Collaborating closely with experimental labs, her lab has also played a key role in dissecting the biogenesis and functions of small silencing RNAs. Dr. Weng is a national and international leader in large-scale epigenomic sciences. She led the Data Analysis Center of the ENCODE Consortium 2012-2022 and has co-led the Data Analysis Center of the psychENCODE Consortium since 2015. The goals of these two consortia are to investigate the regulatory landscapes in the human genome, with ENCODE focusing on normal physiology and psychENCODE on psychiatric disorders. She has been co-leading a modeling project in the Impact of Genomic Variation on Function (IGVF) Consortium. In 2023, she was selected by the NIH to lead the data analysis and coordination center of the Multi-Omics Dr. Weng exemplifies the next generation of computational genomicists who leverage the power of computing on big data to understand the mysteries of the human genome. Dr. Weng has published more than 250 scientific papers, with a total citation of more than 75,000 and an H-index of 114 as of April 2023. She received a Professional Opportunities for Women award in 1998 and a CAREER Award in 2002 from the National Science Foundation. She was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2013 and a Fellow of the International Society of Computational Biology in 2020. In 2018, UMass Medical School awarded her the Li Weibo Chair in Biomedical Research. In 2020, Dr. Weng co-founded Rgenta, a biotech startup in Cambridge, MA, which develops small-molecule therapeutics and directs its Scientific Advisory Board. She won the 2022 Charles DeLisi Award in the College of Engineering at Boston University.