Portrait of Chen-Yang Su

Chen-Yang Su PhD

Incoming Postdoctoral Scholar, Stanford University
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Evals · Agents · AI for Science

Madison, Wisconsin, USA

I am an incoming Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University. I am currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison working with Prof. Tianyuan Lu. I completed my PhD in Quantitative Life Sciences at McGill University (December 2025), advised by Prof. Sirui Zhou, where I built protein–disease atlases using proteogenomic approaches to identify causal proteins for complex diseases and nominate drug targets. Before that, I completed my MSc in Computer Science at McGill (2022), supervised by Prof. Joelle Pineau (Meta's former Global VP of AI) and Prof. Brent Richards (CEO of 5 Prime Sciences), affiliated with Mila – Quebec AI Institute, the Reasoning and Learning Lab, and the Lady Davis Institute, and my BSc in Computer Science & Biology at McGill (2020).

My research is supported by a Postdoctoral Research Scholarship from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS) ($110,000 CAD; ranked 2nd of 15 applications in committee) and a Biswas Family Foundation Fast Grant ($25,000 USD) — seed funding from Sanjit Biswas’s foundation for an AI-native human genetics knowledge base for causal target discovery; the inaugural program funded 37 of 685 applications worldwide (5.4%). My PhD was funded by a Canada Graduate Scholarship – Doctoral (CGS-D; $113,333 CAD), an FRQS Doctoral Training Fellowship ($96,000 CAD), and a Lady Davis Institute / TD Bank Studentship ($20,000 CAD) — over $450K CAD in total funding, alongside 56 additional honors and awards.

I have contributed to 52 publications (32 research articles and 20 correspondence articles) published or accepted in peer-reviewed venues including ICLR, The New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Genetics, Nature Metabolism, Nature Communications, The Lancet Haematology, European Heart Journal, JAMA, Diabetes Care, and Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. I have given invited talks at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Stanford University School of Medicine, Academia Sinica (Genomics Research Center, Taiwan), the National Taiwan University, and the Banff International Research Station.

I am a co-founder of a target discovery startup (in stealth), an elected member of the Young Investigators Committee of the International Genetic Epidemiology Society, and an investment fellow at HaloHealth. Previously, I was the first Canadian intern at Hinge Health (since IPO'd, raising $437.3M) and a world finalist in the $500K USD XPRIZE Pandemic Response Challenge.

News

  • [08/2026] 🎓 I will be joining Stanford University as a Postdoctoral Scholar!
  • [08/2026] 🗣️ Invited speaker at the 2026 Genomic Epidemiology Workshop, Academia Sinica, Taiwan — a 75-minute invited lecture, "AI-Driven Integration of Multi-Omics Data: Examples and Demo" (invited by Dr. Yi-Hsiang Hsu, Harvard Medical School).
  • [08/2026] 🗣️ Invited research visit to the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard — gave a 60-minute talk to the Benjamin Neale Lab and the Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit (ATGU).
  • [08/2026] 📄 Paper accepted at Cardiovascular Diabetology: plasma proteomic network analysis identifies physical-activity-associated protein modules potentially mediating type 2 diabetes risk.
  • [07/2026] 💰 Awarded a Biswas Family Foundation Fast Grant ($25,000 USD) for "AI-Native Human Genetics Knowledge Base for Causal Target Discovery" — the inaugural program funded 37 of 685 applications worldwide (5.4%).
  • [06/2026] 🗣️ Invited research talk at the Michael P. Snyder Lab, Stanford University School of Medicine.
  • [05/2026] 💰 Awarded the FRQS Postdoctoral Research Scholarship ($110,000 CAD) — ranked 2nd of 15 applications in my committee; part of a cohort of 66 fellows selected across Canada.
  • [04/2026] 📄 First-author paper accepted at Nature Communications: Disentangling osteoarthritis-specific genetic effects from obesity to identify novel therapeutic targets. [medRxiv]
  • [04/2026] Started as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, working with Prof. Tianyuan Lu.
  • [03/2026] 🗣️ Invited research talk at the Pradeep Natarajan Lab, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
  • [12/2025] 🎓 Completed my PhD in Quantitative Life Sciences at McGill University! Thesis: Integrating proteomics and genomics for target discovery in complex diseases.
  • [10/2025] 🏆 Won three awards at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress: (1) the CSVM Best Abstract Award; (2) 2nd Place in the "My Research in a Nutshell" 3-Minute Blitz; and (3) CCS Trainee Research Award in Basic Science finalist (top 4 of 362 abstracts).
  • [10/2025] 🏆 One of six winners of the CardioMetabolic Health, Diabetes and Obesity (CMDO) Research Network & Obesity Canada contest, winning free registration to the Canadian Obesity Summit 2026.
  • [07/2025] 🗣️ Invited speaker at the 2025 Genomic Epidemiology Workshop, Academia Sinica, Taiwan — a 75-minute invited lecture (invited by Dr. Yi-Hsiang Hsu, Harvard Medical School).
  • [05/2025] 🏆 1st Prize for oral presentation at the Quebec Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Research Conference; also gave an invited oral at TAGC 2025 (UW–Madison) as the only Canadian invited. [Video]
  • [01/2025] 🗣️ Invited talk at the National Taiwan University Monthly Talks on Poly-omics & Precision Medicine (invited by Dr. Pei-Lung Chen). [Video]
  • [01/2025] Elected to the Young Investigators Committee of the International Genetic Epidemiology Society — the youngest member elected to the committee (at the time).
  • [11/2024] 🏆 Gave a Platform Talk at ASHG 2024 (top 10% of ~3,500 abstracts) and presented as a Roger Williams Award Finalist at IGES 2024 (top 4 student abstracts).
  • [10/2024] 🏆 Best oral presentation at the CMDO Annual Symposium on Health Research and Artificial Intelligence.
  • [07/2024] 🗣️ Invited talk at the Banff International Research Station (BIRS) workshop on biobank data analysis (by invitation only). [Video]
  • [05/2024] 🏆 Best poster presentation under the "Population Neuroscience and Brain Health" theme at the Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives (HBHL) Symposium, McGill University.
  • [09/2023] 🏆 Trainee Poster Excellence Award at the 1st Canadian Symposium on Long COVID.
  • [09/2023] Started my PhD thesis research with Prof. Sirui Zhou at the McGill Genome Centre.
  • [05/2023] 💰 Awarded a CIHR Canada Graduate Scholarship – Doctoral (CGS-D; $113,333 CAD).
  • [09/2022] 🎓 Started my PhD in Quantitative Life Sciences at McGill University.
  • [06/2022] 💰 Awarded the FRQS Doctoral Training Fellowship ($96,000 CAD) — ranked 2nd of 12 applications in my committee.
  • [05/2022] 🎓 Graduated with my MSc in Computer Science from McGill University, and joined the Computer Vision Science Team at Hinge Health as their first Canadian intern.
  • [05/2021] 🏆 Won 1st Place for best poster presentation ("Genetics and Gene Expression" category) at the 21st Annual McGill Biomedical Graduate Conference; also awarded the Lady Davis Institute / TD Bank Studentship ($20,000 CAD).
  • [03/2021] 🏆 Our Mila team was selected as a world finalist in the $500K USD XPRIZE Pandemic Response Challenge.
  • [09/2020] 🎓 Started my MSc in Computer Science at McGill University, supervised by Joelle Pineau and Brent Richards.
  • [05/2020] 🎓 Graduated with my BSc in Computer Science & Biology from McGill University.

Selected Publications

Selected first-author and co-first-author works. *Equal contribution; ¶corresponding author. Full list of publications on Google Scholar.

Nat Commun

Disentangling osteoarthritis-specific genetic effects from obesity to identify novel therapeutic targets

Chen-Yang Su, Masashi Hasebe, Shihui Peng, Dandan Tan, Shucheng Cao, Kevin Y. H. Liang, Takayoshi Sasako, Vincent Mooser, Wenmin Zhang, Sirui Zhou, Satoshi Yoshiji, Tianyuan Lu*, Guillaume Butler-Laporte*¶

Nature Communications, accepted 2026

[medRxiv] [Talk video]

🏆 Presented as an invited oral at TAGC 2025 (UW–Madison) — the only Canadian invited

Genome Med

Multi-ancestry proteome-phenome-wide Mendelian randomization offers a comprehensive protein–disease atlas and potential therapeutic targets

Chen-Yang Su, Adriaan van der Graaf, Wenmin Zhang, Dong-Keun Jang, Susannah Selber-Hnatiw, Ta-Yu Yang, Guillaume Butler-Laporte, Kevin Y. H. Liang, Masashi Hasebe, Benoît Delabays, Fumihiko Matsuda, Maria C. Costanzo, Noël P. Burtt, Jason Flannick, Sirui Zhou, Vincent Mooser, Tianyuan Lu*, Satoshi Yoshiji*¶

Genome Medicine, under revision

[medRxiv] [Protein–disease atlas]

🏆 ASHG 2024 Platform Talk (top 10% of ~3,500 abstracts) · Roger Williams Award Finalist, IGES 2024 · atlas hosted with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard's Common Metabolic Disease Knowledge Portal

Lancet Haematol

Machine-learning models to predict iron recovery after blood donation: a model development and external validation study

Wanjin Li*, Chen-Yang Su*, Amber Meulenbeld, Huzbah Jagirdar, Mart P. Janssen, Ronél Swanevelder, Roberta Bruhn, Zhanna Kaidarova, Marjorie D. Bravo, Sophie Cao, Brian Custer, Karin van den Berg, W. Alton Russell¶

The Lancet Haematology, 2025

[Paper]

Commun Biol

Multi-ancestry proteogenomic analysis identifies risk proteins for intracranial aneurysms

Chen-Yang Su, Juliano Malizia, Masashi Hasebe, Thomas Zheng, Alejandro Mejia-Garcia, Hsuan Megan Tsao, Zhaohe Lin, Ta-Yu Yang, Fumihiko Matsuda, Patrick A. Dion, Vincent Mooser, Guy Rouleau, Guillaume Butler-Laporte, Tianyuan Lu, Satoshi Yoshiji, Sirui Zhou¶

Communications Biology, under revision

[medRxiv]

🏆 Best Abstract Award, Canadian Society of Vascular Medicine, Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2025

Diabetes

Disentangling adiposity-related and non-adiposity-related genetic pathways for type 2 diabetes

Chen-Yang Su¶, Tianyuan Lu¶

Diabetes, under review

[medRxiv]

eBioMedicine

Genetic evidence prioritizes circulating proteins for heart failure beyond shared BMI-related genetic liability

Chen-Yang Su¶, Tianyuan Lu¶

eBioMedicine, submitted

[medRxiv]

Nat Genet

Positive-control Mendelian randomization highlights power constraints in disease-mortality GWAS

Chen-Yang Su, Guillaume Butler-Laporte¶

Nature Genetics (Correspondence), submitted

[medRxiv]

Commun Biol

Systematic variant-to-gene mapping highlights TGFB2 and VEGFA as adipokine-coding genes with non-obese insulin resistance characteristics and distinct cardiometabolic disease risks

Chen-Yang Su, Masashi Hasebe, Adriaan van der Graaf, Yefeng Yang, Hsuan Megan Tsao, Leighton Smith, Guillaume Butler-Laporte, Sirui Zhou, Wenmin Zhang, Tianyuan Lu*, Satoshi Yoshiji*¶

Communications Biology, under review

[medRxiv]

ICLR

Regularized Inverse Reinforcement Learning

Wonseok Jeon¶, Chen-Yang Su, Paul Barde, Thang Doan, Derek Nowrouzezahrai, Joelle Pineau

ICLR, 2021 · also a NeurIPS Deep RL Workshop paper, 2020

[Paper]

🏆 Spotlight Presentation (167/2,977 = top 5.6%)

Sci Rep

Circulating proteins to predict COVID-19 severity

Chen-Yang Su*, Sirui Zhou*, Edgar Gonzalez-Kozlova*, Guillaume Butler-Laporte, Elsa Brunet-Ratnasingham, ..., The Mount Sinai COVID-19 Biobank Team, ..., J. Brent Richards¶

Scientific Reports, 2023

[Paper]

Selected Letters & Correspondence

NEJM

Semaglutide in Metabolic Dysfunction–Associated Steatohepatitis

Chen-Yang Su¶, Masashi Hasebe

The New England Journal of Medicine, 2025

[Paper]

NEJM

Screening for Prostate Cancer with a Polygenic Risk Score

Chen-Yang Su¶, Masashi Hasebe

The New England Journal of Medicine, 2025

[Paper]

Plus 18 additional correspondence articles in Diabetes Care, European Heart Journal, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Kidney International, Nephrology, International Journal of Cardiology, and other journals — full list on my Google Scholar.

Invited Talks

Watch

National Taiwan University — “Leveraging large-scale human genetics and multi-omics analysis for drug target discovery” (Jan 2025)
The Advances in Social Genomics Conference (TAGC), UW–Madison — “Disentangling osteoarthritis-specific genetic effects from obesity” (May 2025; talk starts at 42:11)
Banff International Research Station (BIRS) — “Multi-ancestry proteome-wide Mendelian randomization offers a comprehensive protein–disease atlas” (Jul 2024) · Watch on BIRS
[08/2026]

Academia Sinica, Taiwan — 2026 Genomic Epidemiology Workshop

"AI-Driven Integration of Multi-Omics Data: Examples and Demo" (75-minute invited lecture)

Invited by Dr. Yi-Hsiang Hsu (Harvard Medical School). Organized by the Genomics Research Center and Biomedical Translation Research Center, Academia Sinica; co-organized by the Taiwan Epidemiology Association and Taiwan Biobank.

[08/2026]

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard — Benjamin Neale Lab & Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit (ATGU)

"Integrating Human Genetics and Proteomics to Prioritize Therapeutic Targets Across Complex Diseases" (60-minute talk)

ATGU-wide candidate research talk, given during an invited and financially supported 3-day research visit.

[06/2026]

Stanford University School of Medicine — Michael P. Snyder Lab

"From Genetic Evidence to Dynamic Precision Health: Multi-ancestry proteogenomics for biomarkers, mechanisms, and actionable targets" (45-minute talk + Q&A)

[03/2026]

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard — Pradeep Natarajan Lab

"Proteogenomics for target discovery in complex diseases with applications to cardiometabolic and vascular traits" (45-minute talk + Q&A)

[07/2025]

Academia Sinica, Taiwan — 2025 Genomic Epidemiology Workshop

"AI-Driven Integration of Multi-Omics Data: Opportunities and Challenges" (75-minute invited lecture)

Invited by Dr. Yi-Hsiang Hsu (Harvard Medical School).

[03/2025]

McGill University — Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain

"Exploring causal relationships in genetics: Mendelian randomization" (60-minute workshop)

[01/2025]

National Taiwan University — Monthly Talks on Poly-omics & Precision Medicine

"Leveraging large-scale human genetics and multi-omics analysis for drug target discovery" (50-minute talk + Q&A)

Invited by Dr. Pei-Lung Chen (Director, Graduate Institute of Medical Genomics and Proteomics, NTU). [Video]

[01/2025]

Montreal Genomics Meeting — CHU Sainte-Justine

"Proteogenomics for drug target discovery"

Invited by Dr. Guillaume Lettre (Montreal Heart Institute / Université de Montréal).

[07/2024]

Banff International Research Station (BIRS) — "Statistical, Computational, Translational, and Ethical Challenges in Biobank Data Analysis" workshop

"Multi-ancestry proteome-wide Mendelian randomization offers a comprehensive protein–disease atlas and potential therapeutic targets"

By invitation only. [Video]

[04/2024]

Long COVID Web — Pillar 1 Monthly Meeting (national research network)

"Combining proteomics and metabolomics to identify signatures protective of neurological consequences of post-acute SARS-CoV-2 infection"

Selected Conference Presentations

Selected Awards & Funding

Major Funding & Fellowships

Selected Honors

Over $450K CAD in research funding, plus 56 additional honors and awards.

Education & Experience

Beyond academia

Teaching & Service

Teaching

Service

Personal

I was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and spent my childhood growing up there as well as in Arlington, Texas; Bellevue, Washington; and Victoria, British Columbia. I completed my high school education in Vancouver, British Columbia, and moved to Montréal, Québec, where I completed my undergraduate, master’s, and PhD.

Dragon and Tiger Pagodas at Lotus Pond, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
The Dragon and Tiger Pagodas at Lotus Pond, Kaohsiung. Photo: Water Resources Bureau, Kaohsiung City Government.

I speak English, Mandarin, and Taiwanese (all native), along with basic French. In my spare time, I enjoy anything fitness-related, dancing, karaoke, watching cooking videos on YouTube, and trying new foods.

Motivation

Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge
30th U.S. President
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved, and always will solve, the problems of the human race.” — Calvin Coolidge, as recited in The Founder (2016)
Jim Rohn — The Major Key to Your Better Future Is You
“Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.”— Jim Rohn
“Don’t wish it were easier. Wish you were better.”— Jim Rohn
Earl Nightingale — The Strangest Secret
“We become what we think about.”— Earl Nightingale

Blog

musings

All posts →

Contact

The best way to reach me is by email: csu59 [at] wisc [dot] edu