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HKU IDS Scholar

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Professor Qingpeng ZHANG 張清鵬
Associate Professor
HKU Musketeers Foundation Institute of Data Science and
Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy, HKU
qpzhang@hku.hk
P307J, Graduate House, HKU
Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy
About Me

Prof. Qingpeng ZHANG is an Associate Professor in the Musketeers Foundation Institute of Data Science and the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy at HKU. He received the B.S. degree in Automation from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2009, and the M.S. and the Ph.D. degrees in Systems and Industrial Engineering (minor in Management Information Systems) from the University of Arizona, in 2011 and 2012, respectively. Prior to joining HKU in 08/2023, he was an Associate Professor with the School of Data Science at The City University of Hong Kong (CityU). He previously worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Tetherless World Constellation, Department of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

He is a Senior Member of IEEE, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, and an associate/academic editor for npj Digital Medicine, BMJ Mental Health, INFORMS Journal on Data Science, IEEE TITS, IEEE TCSS, Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (2021), and PLoS ONE. He was a theme issue editor for Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical and Engineering Sciences and the guest editor for a number of other journals. He is on the executive committee of the International Society of Digital Health, Hong Kong Society of Behavior Health, Systems Engineering Society of China, and the Hospital IoT Branch of China Association of Medical Equipment.

His research interests include medical informatics, AI in drug discovery, healthcare data analytics and network science. His research has been published in leading journals such as Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Communications, PNAS, and MIS Quarterly, as well as featured in press such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, BBC, The Times, The Guardian and Ming Pao. He received The President’s Award (2022) and the Outstanding Research Award for Junior Faculty (2021) from CityU and the Andrew P. Sage Best Transactions Paper Award (2021) from IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society.

Current Research Project

Prof. Zhang’s current research focuses on developing knowledge-enhanced predictive decision analytics methods to characterize the high-dimensional biological, clinical and behavioral data for drug discovery, precision medicine, and public health.

Selected Publications

(†: research student/staff; *: corresponding author)

  1. Luo, Y.† , Yip, S.F.P. & Zhang, Q.* (2024). Positive association between Internet use and mental health among adults aged ≥50 years in 23 countries. Nature Human Behaviour. doi:10.1038/s41562-024-02048-7
  2. Yao, Y.† , Chen, F.Y.H. & Zhang, Q.* (2024). Optimized patient-specific immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies for cancer treatment based on tumor immune microenvironment modeling. Briefings in Bioinformatics. 25/6. bbae547 doi:10.1093/bib/bbae547
  3. Ye, Y.† , Cao, Z. , Zeng, D.D. & Zhang, Q.* (2024). Supply chain loss from easing COVID-19 restrictions: an evolutionaryeconomic-epidemiological modelling study. Proceedings of the Royal Society A. 480/2283. 0803 (cover feature) doi:10.1098/rspa.2023.0803
  4. Lu, Yi.† , Chu, Q. , Li, Z. , Wang, M. , Gatenby, R. & Zhang, Q.* (2024). Deep reinforcement learning identies personalized intermittent androgen deprivation therapy for prostate cancer. Briefings in Bioinformatics. 25/2. bbae071 doi:10.1093/bib/bbae071
  5. Zhou, J.† , Zhang, Q. (joint first author). , Zhou, S.* , Li, X.* & Zhang, M. (2023). Unintended Emotional Effects of Online Health Communities: A Text Mining-Supported Empirical Study. MIS Quarterly. 47/1. 195 – 226. doi:10.25300/MISQ/2022/17018
  6. Yang, J.† , Li, Z. , Wu, W.K.K. , Yu, S. , Xu, Z.† , Chu, Q.* & Zhang, Q.* (2022). Deep Learning Identifies Explainable Reasoning Paths of Mechanism of Action for Drug Repurposing from Multilayer Biological Network. Briefings in Bioinformatics. 23/6. bbac469 doi:10.1093/bib/bbac469
  7. Guo, M.† , Xu, Z.† , Zhang, Q.* , Liao, X. & Liu, J. (2022). Deciphering Feature Effects on Decision-Making in Ordinal Regression Problems: An Explainable Ordinal Factorization Model. ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data. 16/3. 1 – 26. doi:10.1145/3487048
  8. Ye, Y.† , Zhang, Q.* , Wei, X. , Cao, Z. , Yuan, S.H.Y. & Zeng, D.D.* (2022). Equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines makes a life-saving difference to all countries. Nature Human Behaviour. 6. 207 – 216 (cover feature). doi:10.1038/s41562-022-01289-8
  9. Zhang, Q.* , Gao, J. , Wu, J.T. , Cao, Z. & Zeng, D.D. (2022). Data Science Approaches to Confronting the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Narrative Review. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical and Engineering Sciences. 380/2214. 20210127 doi:10.1098/rsta.2021.0127
  10. Yang, J.† , Xu, Z.† , Wu, W.K.K. , Chu, Q. & Zhang, Q.* (2021). GraphSynergy: Network Inspired Deep Learning Model for Anti–Cancer Drug Combination Prediction. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 28/11. 2336 – 2345. doi:10.1093/jamia/ocab162
  11. Ye, Y.† , Zhang, Q.* , Ruan, Z. , Cao, Z. , Xuan, Q. & Zeng, D.D. (2020). Effect of heterogeneous risk perception on information diffusion, behavior change, and disease transmission. Physical Review E. 102. 042314 doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.102.042314
  12. Wang, Y.† , Zhang, Q.* & Yang, X.* (joint first authors) (2020). Evolution of the Chinese Guarantee Network under Financial Crisis and Stimulus Program. Nature Communications. 11. 2693 doi:10.1038/s41467-020-16535-8
Research Interests

Medical Informatics, AI in Drug Discovery, Healthcare Data Analytics, Network Science

The ever-growing alumni list of Prof Zhang’s group:
  1. Dr. Yitao Lu (Ph.D. Jointly supervised with Prof. Clint Ho 2020-2024, Current: Quant at Y-intercept)
  2. Dr. Dandan Wang (Ph.D. Jointly supervised with Prof. Feicheng Ma, Wuhan University and Prof. Linyan Li 2021-2024, Current: Postdoc at Hong Kong Baptist University)
  3. Dr. Zhiheng Lyu (Ph.D. Jointly supervised with Prof. Kowk Leung Tsui, Virginia Tech and Prof. Linyan Li 2019-2024, Current: Researcher at China Mobile Research Institute)
  4. Dr. Hanchu Zhou (Ph.D. Jointly supervised with Prof. Helai Huang, Central South University 2019-2023, Current: Assistant Professor at Central South University)
  5. Dr. Jiannan Yang (Ph.D. 2019-2023, Current: Postdoc at HKU)
  6. Dr. Yang Ye (Ph.D. 2019-2023, Current: Postdoc at Yale University)
  7. Dr. Weilan Wang (Postdoc 2021-2023, Current: Research Fellow at National University of Singapore)
  8. Ms. Xinru Fang (RA 2022, Current: The Boston Consulting Group)
  9. Dr. Yu Cheng (Ray) Hsu (Ph.D. Jointly supervised with Prof. Kwok Leung Tsui, Virginia Tech 2020-2022, Current: Research Assistant Professor at HKU)
  10. Mr. Yishun Luo (RA 2021-2022, Next: The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities)
  11. Mr. Wenlong Liu (M.S. and RA 2021-2022, Current: Ph.D. student at PolyU)
  12. Ms. Xinxin Gong (RA 2021-2022, Current: Huawei)
  13. Dr. Jin Wang (Postdoc 2021, Current: Associate Professor of Professional Practice at Rutgers Business School, Rutgers University)
  14. Dr. Fengshi Jing (Ph.D. 2018-2021, Next: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Current: Assistant Professor at City University of Macau)
  15. Dr. Chaocheng He (Ph.D. Jointly supervised with Prof. Jiang Wu, Wuhan University 2018-2021, Current: Assistant Professor at Wuhan University)
  16. Dr. Mengzhuo Guo (Ph.D. Jointly supervised with Prof. Xiuwu Liao, Xi’an Jiaotong University 2018-2021, Next: Tencent, Current: Assistant Professor at Sichuan University)
  17. Dr. Jiandong Zhou (Ph.D. 2018-2021, Next: Postdoc at The University of Oxford, Assistant Professor at University of Warwick, Current: Assistant Professor at HKU)
  18. Mr. Xinmiao Qu (M.S. 2020-2021, Current: China Telecom Global)
  19. Mr. Kaichen Tang (M.S. 2019-2020, Current: PhD student The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston)
  20. Mr. Zhe Yuan (M.S. 2019-2020, Current: Huawei)
  21. Dr. Zhongzhi Xu (Ph.D. 2017-2020, HKSBH Excellent Doctoral Dissertation in Behavioral Heath Award, Next: Postdoc at HKU, Current: Associate Professor at Sun Yat-sen University)
  22. Dr. Lu Zhong (Ph.D. 2015-2019, Current: Postdoc at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
  23. Mr. Chenhan Zhang (M.S. 2018-2019, Current: PhD student at University of Technology Sydney)
  24. Dr. Jiaqi Zhou (Ph.D. 2015-2018, Current: Alibaba)
  25. Dr. Haolin Wang (Ph.D. Jointly supervised with Prof. Jiahu Yuan, Chinese Academy of Sciences 2015-2018, Current: Associate Professor at Chongqing Medical University)
  26. Dr. Lifang Li (Ph.D. jointly supervised with Prof. Jun Tian, Xi’an Jiaotong University 2015-2018, Current: Postdoc at King’s College London)
  27. Dr. Yingli Wang (Ph.D. jointly-supervised with Prof. Xiaoguang Yang, Chinese Academy of Sciences 2016-2018, Next: Chinese Academy of Sciences)
  28. Ms. Yi Chai (M.S. 2016-2017, RA 2017-2018, Next: Ph.D., Postdoc, Research Assistant Professor at HKU, Current: Assistant Professor at Shenzhen University)
  29. Dr. Ronghua Xu (Ph.D. 2014-2017, Current: Assistant Professor at Zhejiang University of Technology)
  30. Ms. Manqing Dong (M.S. 2015-2016, Next: obtained Ph.D. from The University of New South Wales, Current: eBay)
Seminar