Faculty Member
Lei Sun Ph.D. in Statistics
- Email Address(es)
- sun(at)utstat.toronto.edu
- Office Address
- Department of Statistical Sciences 700 University Ave. Toronto, ON M5G 1Z5
- Website(s)
- Lei Sun's Homepage
- Division(s)/Institute(s)
- Biostatistics Division
- Position
- Professor
- SGS Status
- Full Member
- Appointment Status
- Tenured
- Currently Accepting Doctoral Students?
- Yes
Research Interests
- Statistical Genetics and Genomics
- Applied Statistics and Data Science
- Robust Association Methods
- Multiple Hypothesis Testing
- Selective Inference
- Computational Tools
Education & Training History
- 2001: Ph.D. in Statistics, University of Chicago, USA
- 1995: B.S. in Mathematics, Fudan University, China
Other Affiliations
- Department of Statistical Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Science (75%)
- Division of Biostatistics, Dalla Lana School of Public Health (25%)
Primary Teaching Responsibilities
- CHL 5224 – (Modern) Statistical Genetics
- STA 480/STA 2080 – Fundamentals of Statistical Genetics
- STA 4515 – Multiple Hypothesis Testing and Its Applications
Current Research Projects
Statistical methodology projects:
- 2022-2027, Methods for including the X chromosome in genetic association studies to advance disease gene mapping (CIHR, co-PIs: Lei Sun and Andrew Paterson), $765,000.
- 2022-2024, Methods for genome-wide studies of variants with sex differences in genetic effect (Data Sciences Institute (DSI) Catalyst Grant, co-PIs: Lei Sun and Andrew Paterson), $100,000
- 2020-2024, Back to the future: fast and accurate identification of shared genomic segments for disease gene mapping using population-based linkage analysis to take advantage of founder effects (CIHR, co-PIs: Andrew Paterson and Lei Sun), $680,852.
- 2018-2023, Robust allele-based association analyses of complex genetic data (NSERC, Individual Discovery Grant), $260,000.
Collaborative projects:
- 2020-2022, Mitochondria, Inflammation and Genetics: New Approaches for Psychosis Early Detection and Intervention (CAMH Discovery Fund Seed Funding Competition, co-PIs: Vanessa Goncalves, Lei Sun; co-I: James Kennedy), $198,022.
- 2019-2022, Genetic epidemiology of cystic fibrosis (Cystic Fibrosis of Canada, CFC, PI: Lisa Strug), $300,000.
Recent Publications with trainees§
A complete list at http://www.utstat.toronto.edu/sun/publications.html
- Zhang L§, Sun L (to appear). A generalized robust allele-based genetic association test. Biometrics.
- Deng WQ§, Sun L (to appear). gJLS2: An R package for generalized joint location and scale analysis in X-inclusive genome-wide association studies. G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics.
- Wang F§, Naim P, Cheng W, Sun L, Strug LJ (2022). A flexible summary statistics-based colocalization method with application to the mucin Cystic Fibrosis lung disease modifier locus. American Journal of Human Genetics.
- Chen B§, Craiu RV, Lisa J. Strug, Sun L (2021). The X factor: a robust and powerful approach to X-chromosome-inclusive whole-genome association studies. Genetic Epidemiology. (The work was highlighted by the International Genetic Epidemiology Society (IGES).)
- Zhao Y§, Sun L (2021). On set-based association tests: insights from a regression using summary statistics. Canadian Journal of Statistics.