Chi Zhang, PhD

Biography

Education and Post-Graduate Training

• Ph.D., Biological Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA (2020)
• B.S., Electrical and Computer Engineering, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications (joint program with New York Institute of Technology), Nanjing, China (2012)

Career History

• Postdoctoral Fellow, the Maga Lab, Center for Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, WA, USA (2021-2023)
• Instructor, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA (2020)

Teaching Interests

Teaching interests include Human Gross Anatomy (DDDS 602 Human Structure, Function, and Disease 1, and anatomy components in DDDS 603 Human Structure, Function, and Disease 2, DDDHS 3250 Biomedical Science 1) and research methods about 3D imaging, R and Python programming, shape analysis and multivariate analysis (OBIO 689-601 3D Morphometrics for Biological and Biomedical Analysis).

Research Interests

Dr. Chi Zhang’s research interests include 1) applying 3D imaging, shape analysis, and biomechanics to study craniofacial biology, evolution, and diseases and 2) developing software tools for biological and biomedical 3D imaging and phenotype analysis. Dr. Zhang has a broad background including engineering, paleoanthropology, craniofacial biology, and 3D biomedical imaging software development. Dr. Zhang’s Ph.D. dissertation research applied 3D morphometrics to analyze the craniofacial variation of a fossil human species, Homo erectus, and examined the factors, such as registration, impacting the analysis. As a postdoctoral researcher at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Dr. Zhang worked on the open-source software development of the SlicerMorph extension of 3D Slicer, such as the automated landmarking and model registration modules, for researchers to collect and analyze 3D imaging and phenotype data.

His current research themes are:

1. Developing an open-source software for virtual orofacial surgery simulation based on 3D imaging and physics simulation.

2. Using 3D shape analysis and biomechanical methods to understand craniofacial growth and development and abnormality in human and mouse models

3. The impact of registration in shape analysis

Dr. Zhang is also actively exploring AI imaging techniques, such as MonaiLabel, in biomedical and clinical research. One of his side projects is to explore the deep learning-based lab animal pose analysis package DeepLabCut to classify laboratory mouse behavior from video frames contributing to behavior analysis in neural science.

Selected Publications

1. Zhang, C., & Maga, A. M. (2023). An open-source photogrammetry workflow for reconstructing 3D models. Integrative Organismal Biology, 5(1), obad024 (https://doi.org/10.1093/iob/obad024).
2. Zhang, C., Porto, A., Rolfe, S., Kocatulum, A., & Maga, A. M. (2022). Automated Landmarking via Multiple Templates. PLOS ONE, 17(12), e0278035 (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278035).
3. Zhang, C., Miller, S. F., Roosenboom, J., Wehby, G. L., Moreno Uribe, L. M., Hecht, J. T., ... & Weinberg, S. M. (2018). Soft tissue nasal asymmetry as an indicator of orofacial cleft predisposition. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part A, 176(6), 1296-1303 (10.1002/ajmg.a.38688).
4. Schwartz, J. H., Tattersall, I., & Zhang, C. (2014). Comment on “A complete skull from Dmanisi, Georgia, and the evolutionary biology of early Homo”, Science, 344(6182), 360 (10.1126/science.1250056).