Wenjun Zhao

Assistant Professor of Mathematics     Department of Mathematics     Wake Forest University

Contact

127 Manchester Hall, PO Box 7388, Winston-Salem, NC 27109

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About me

I am an assistant professor of mathematics at Wake Forest University, and an institute affiliated member of NITMB . My research develops geometric and statistical methods for learning structure and dynamics from distribution-valued data. A central tool in my work is optimal transport, which I use to study biological systems, including single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, gene regulatory dynamics, and morphological shape analysis.

Previously, I was a PIMS–Simons Fellow from 2024-2025 at the University of British Columbia, associated with the Kantorovich Initiative, and the inaugural LFZ Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics (postdoctoral position) at Brown University. Before that, I received a Ph.D. from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University in 2021, advised by Professor Esteban G. Tabak, and a B.Sc. degree from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2016.

Broadly, I am interested in how geometry, probability, and computation can be combined to uncover mechanisms and causal structure in complex biological systems.

In addition to research, I am deeply committed to teaching and mentorship. I am honored to have received the postdoctoral award for outstanding teaching from UBC (departmental award given to two postdocs annually), and Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching from Brown (a university-wide award presented to 2–3 faculty members each year).

Check out our upcoming workshop at NITMB on shape dynamics!