About Me

Welcome to my personal website! I'm Zhiwei, a fourth year PhD student in Statistics at UC Berkeley. My research interests lie in interpretable machine learning, deep learning, causal inference, and causal ML/AI. For the summer of 2026, I was a research data scentisit PhD intern at Google where I built an anomaly detection & root cause diagnosis pipeline for improving the stability of Google's AI infrastructure fleet. In my free time, I love to go on resturant hunts, working out, and just enjoying the nature :)

Feel free to reach out to me via email (xzhiwei@berkeley.edu) if you'd like to collaborate or discuss career opportunities!

Education

PhD in Statistics

University of California, Berkeley
2023 - Current

Advisor: Elizabeth Purdom, Samuel D. Pimentel
Fellowship: The Elizabeth Scott Fellowship in Computing, Data Science, and Society

BS in Statistics & Mathematics

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
2018 - 2021

High Distinction

Publications

Preprints & Working Papers

Estimation, Inference, and Sensitivity for Spillover Effects in Two-Stage Observational Studies via Matching

Zhiwei Xiao, Samuel D. Pimentel

Manuscript in progress

A Statistical Framework for Interpretable Disease Classification

Zhiwei Xiao, et al.

Manuscript in review at Bioinformatics

Journal Articles

Regionally distinct progenitor cells in the lower airway give rise to neuroendocrine and multiciliated cells in the developing human lung

Ansley S Conchola, Tristan Frum,Zhiwei Xiao, et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023
[PDF] | [DOI]

Stable iPSC-derived NKX2-1+ lung bud tip progenitor organoids give rise to airway and alveolar cell types

Renee FC Hein, Ansley S Conchola, Alexis S Fine, Zhiwei Xiao, et al.
Development, 2022
[PDF] | [DOI]