I am a Genentech Endowed tenure-track assistant professor at UW Biostatistics, and started in Fall 2023. Previously, I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Statistics & Data Science at Carnegie Mellon University, under supervision of Dr. Kathryn Roeder and Dr. Jing Lei, and completed my post-doctoral training with Dr. Nancy R. Zhang.

My research focuses on human cellular mechanisms in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) using single-cell data from post-mortem tissue (sequencing and imaging). Statistical methods offer powerful clues, but these current methods leave many fundamental questions unanswered. • (1) How can we use post-mortem tissue to infer deteriorating cellular mechanisms ante-mortem? We can detect differences between tissue from AD donors and cognitively/pathologically normal donors, but do these differences reflect long-term dynamics that persisted for decades before death? • (2) Brain cells respond not only to amyloid-β and neurofibrillary tau tangles (the defining lesions of AD) but these proteins spread differently across the brain, often influenced by co-occurring neurodegenerative diseases. How can we isolate AD-specific cellular responses amid substantial person-to-person variation, region-specific progression, aging, and unmeasured co-pathologies? • (3) Some donors show high AD pathological burden post-mortem yet no ante-mortem cognitive decline. How can we rigorously quantify this "resilience," and what protective mechanisms allow these donors to mitigate the neurotoxicity of amyloid-β and tau? To address all these different questions about AD, my lab develops statistical and computational advances (ex: deep learning, matrix factorization, and assumption-lean hypothesis testing) to build the next generation of dry-lab tools to inform future therapeutic strategies.

Funding: It is my honor to be funded by the NIGMS R35 (2026-31) and the UW ADRC (2026-27) to support the lab. See our lab's past funding/awards.

Course notes: With help from student volunteers, I also maintain online lecture notes that stemmed from "BIOST 545: Biostatistical Methods for Big Omics Data" (Winter 2025), which provides an overview of how statistical/computational methods specialize to understand different 'omics from single-cell sequencing data.

Note: There are multiple "Kevin Lin"'s at the University of Washington. Be sure to contact the correct email (ID: kzlin)!