Jennings Zhang

Welcome to my personal website. Its content is a superset of my résumé, plus a sprinkle of ✨personality✨.

• 2024-11-15 — I gave a talk at Kubecon + CloudNativeCon. YouTube recording
• 2024-07-17 — I gave a talk at scientificcomputing.rs. YouTube recording
• 2024-04-15 — I was a student of the Advanced Statistical Methods in Neuroimaging and Genetics" 2-week course at the University Of Utah.
• 2023-11-06 — I went to KubeCon in Chicago, Illinois!
• 2023-07-14 — Lightning talk at "Scientific Computing in Rust 2023." Watch on YouTube.
• 2023-06-23 — OHBM 2023 in Montréal was fun! Photo
• 2023-06-06 — Talk on medical software at the Podman community meeting.
• 2023-01-31 — Interview about scientific computing on hybrid cloud. Watch the interview here.
• 2022-06-19 — My first time in Scotland for OHBM 2022. Pigeons there are much louder.
• 2021-07-26 — Featured in Northeastern University Khoury College news.

My publications can be found on Pubmed. They are mostly about the human fetal subplate zone, a subcortical structure relevant to neuronal migration during brain development. I am also a frequent attendee of the OHBM international conference where I usually talk about ChRIS. Here are some of my posters:

• Jennings Zhang et. al. “Estimation of Subplate Thickness by Surface Deformation.” OHBM 2020
• Lana Vasung, Jennings Zhang, et. al. “Association between the thickness of transient fetal cortical compartments and gene expression.” OHBM 2020
• Lana Vasung, Jennings Zhang, et. al. “Abnormal development of transient fetal zones in mild isolated fetal ventriculomegaly.” OHBM 2022
• Jennings Zhang et. al. “Cyberinfrastructure Enabling Reproducible Model Development.” OHBM 2023

Research interests: first and foremost, I am a proponent of open science, open data, and interoperability. I am exclusively interested in research that is open. My career goals are to explore the role of open-source software in medicine and research.

My current focus is on neuroinformatics and computational medicine, though everything computer science and biology pique my interest. In the past I have dabbled with cancer genomics, bacterial meta-'omics, and comparative scRNA-seq.

Some of my active projects:

• The ChRIS Research Integration System https://chrisproject.org
• Fetal brain MRI volume reconstruction pipeline
• Fetal brain surface mesh extraction
  • White matter surface extraction using marching-cubes
  • Gyrification index-dependent mesh deformation to inner subplate surface
  • Fetal brain MRI surface extraction pipeline

• Rust is my love and passion. I use Python and TypeScript when necessary.
• I use Linux extensively at work and at home. NixOS is perfection.

• Signs that you're a good programmer, and signs that you're a bad programmer
• Quote: Design doesn't have to be new, but it has to be good. Research doesn't have to be good, but it has to be new. -- Paul Graham

• I am learning Wing Chun kung fu. Specifically, Gulao village Pin Sun a.k.a. “turning style” or side-body Wing Chun. Please be my training buddy! I am happy to learn and/or teach near Amherst, MA.
• Montréal is my favorite city and I hope to live there someday.