Jiasheng Shi

How would you describe your advising style? Does your approach vary over the course of a student's progress within their degree?
I try to be hands-on in advising style for junior students and hand-off for senior students. For junior students, I expect to be involved in all aspects of the project: project selection, idea formulation, implementation, experiment design, paper writing, etc. I am always happy and glad to discuss or provide suggestions on implementation details if students need such help. As for senior students, I expect them should be independent. I expect senior students to become more proactive in idea formulation and implementation, and to need less supervision in implementation and experimental details.

What is the best way/technology for students to contact you? Are there time frames in which students should expect to hear from you?
The best way to contact me is through email. Students can also drop by my office if they want to discuss anything more private or personal. Students should generally expect a response from me within a day.

How often do you plan to meet with students one-on-one (be as specific as possible, it's okay to describe multiple styles that may vary with student needs)? Is an agenda required? How long are these meetings?
I will hold a regular weekly meeting with each PhD student. The meeting typically is from 60 to 90 minutes, depending on the project and students' needs. If multiple students are involved in one project then they will join this weekly meeting as well. For MS or BS students I schedule regular meetings either every week or every other week depending on the needs of the student and project. I expect students to prepare some pages of proofs/notes/scopes of the model (if it's a theoretical work) or a summary of content/pics/tables (if it's an applicational work) before each meeting, the content should present the progress of the project, briefly describe the challenges students meet, the possible solutions if having, the current results, the future plan, etc. I know that sometimes depending on the state of the project or when students have other commitments a meeting might not be required every week; if a student feels that a regularly scheduled meeting would not be helpful for them given the state of the project then they should feel free to cancel it, giving me at least a day’s notice if possible.

Describe your students' primary area(s) of responsibility and expectations (e.g., reading peer-reviewed literature, in-lab working hours, etc.).
I expect students to have at least one leading research project at all times. Students are responsible for implementation and potential idea formulation (only for senior students), and experimentation for their project, as well as writing papers. I don’t require students to do their work in any particular place or at any particular time; I also don’t set hours that I expect students to be in the lab. Students are free to choose the working place and time as long as they can make satisfactory progress. I do expect students to be responsive by email (responses within half of a day) during weekdays, especially from roughly 10am to 5pm but I don't encourage students to work on weekends unless the deadline is approaching. I don’t expect students to respond to me outside of those times unless there is something urgent or time-sensitive.

How do you decide authorship and/or authorship order?
The authorship order is determined by the contributions. The first author of the paper should be the person who made the most contributions to the project (e.g., the person who finished 80% of the code and ran most of the experiments). The last author of the paper should be the person who led the high-level management and mentorship for the project; this will typically be me, but depending on the project may be another faculty member, or someone else. These persons who wrote the paper and drew figures in detail can also be put into the author list.

How far in advance of a deadline should a student expect to provide written work for feedback, such as publication drafts?
For the paper deadline I expect to set a strict “internal deadline” roughly three or two weeks before the official deadline. Students should have a complete draft of the paper ready by this internal deadline if they plan to submit the paper.

Do you have general expectations for graduation?
I generally expect that a qualified PhD can publish at least three first-author papers in well-recognized statistical journals and these works should align the research topic well.

Are you supportive of your students going on internships?
Yes, I definitely support students to have internships. Internships are a great opportunity to meet and collaborate with new people, grow your network, and gain a new perspective on research or engineering. I think summer is a good time for internships. I don’t have a limit on the number of internships. However, I expect students to start their internship in the second or third summer of their Ph.D. Before the internship begins, I hope students can find their research direction and topic first.

Are there specific standard times that students in your group generally take a vacation?
In general, students take vacations during official holidays (e.g., Spring Festival and National Day) and after paper submissions. Students working with me will likely submit papers to statistical, biostatistics, bioinformatics, and medical journals; After submitting a paper, students can take one or two weeks off.