Career Profile

A PhD fellow in Spatial Transcriptomics at CHUV/UNIL, developing methods for analyzing spatial gene expression and imaging data to understand immuno-oncology and clinical response.

I also enjoy contributing to open-source projects to promote accessible tools and knowledge.

Previously, I spent 3+ years in the pharmaceutical industry as a Biostatistician/Data Scientist.

Employment

Doctoral Researcher

09.2022 - Present
CHUV - Biomedical Data Science Center, Lausanne, Switzerland

• Integrating scRNAseq and spatial transcriptomics (ST) to decode breast, lung, DLBCL cancer.
• Leveraging deep learning-extracted imaging features to inform gene expression analysis.
• Developing pipeline for various ST technologies, such as GeoMx, Visium, VisiumHD & Xenium.

Computational Scientist

01.2022 - 08.2022
Bayer - Oncology Digitalization & Computational Science, Toronto, Canada

• Led first R for submission at Bayer with pharmaverse admiral, managing scope of 2 sub-teams.
• Designed templates that streamlined AE reporting in CSR; drafted developer’s guidelines.
• Assist open-source initiatives in the department and industry-wide working groups.

Real World Evidence Consultant

01.2021 - 12.2021
Analysis Group - Department of Healthcare, Montreal, Canada

• Used IPTW to create external control cohorts for a Phase II oncology trial.
• Predicted the remission of rare diseases with random survival forest.
• Developed R pipelines to automate chart review quality reports, improved efficiency.
• Analyzed autoimmune disorder characteristics using IBM Optum NLP data.

Biostatistics and Data Sciences Intern

05.2019 - 12.2020
Roche - Biostatistics and US Medical Affairs, Toronto, Canada

• Built Shiny module to explore AE and efficacy of a Phase I FDA breakthrough molecule.
• Audited Phase II/III trial meetings, interim analysis, and reviewed study protocol and SAP.
• Developed R functions for disease biology analysis of RNA-seq data from 8 NHL trials.
• Created network analysis animation to identify real-world drug use patterns.

Machine Learning Algorithm Developer

05.2017 - 05.2018
BC Cancer Research Center - Integrative Oncology Imaging Unit, Vancouver, Canada

• Pre-processed H&E and Feulgen images in MATLAB; tuned CNNs in Python.
• Trained Random Forest classifiers in R on imbalanced oral cell data to assist pathologists.
• Delivered bi-monthly presentations on deep learning applications in pathology.

Consulting & Teaching

Statistical Consulting

CAN-BIND Depression Network – Toronto, Canada
03.2019 - 08.2019

• Conducted network analysis on metrics in antidepressant responders vs non-responders.

Princess Margaret Cancer Centre – Biostatistics, Toronto, Canada
09.2018 - 05.2019

• Used PCA and lasso for radiomics feature selection with multiordinal logistic regression.

UBC Hospital Neurology – Data Management, Vancouver, Canada
04.2016 - 08.2016

• Imputed and summarized diagnostic data for Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis.

Teaching Assistant

University of Toronto Statistics Department
2020

• Methods of multivariate data; Methods of data analysis II; Statistics in life sciences.

UBC Statistics Department
2016 - 2017

• Introduction to elementary statistics, for three semesters.

Community Involvement

useR 2024 Conference Organizing Committee

03.2024 - 07.2024
R Foundation, Virtual

• Evaluated abstract submissions (Biostatistics, Machine Learning) from conference participants.

End-to-End Open-source Collaboration Guidance

05.2022 - 09.2022
PHUSE Data Visualisation & Open Source Technology Working Group

• Co-authored a white paper on OSS license guidance for the pharmaceutical industry.

Secretary & Social, Conference Workshop Organizer

2018 - 2020
Univ. of Toronto Biostatistics Graduate Society, Toronto, Canada

• Supported student activities and documented committee meeting minutes.
• Proposed and invited speakers to Canadian Statistics Student Conference workshop session.

Vice President & Peer Mentor

2015 - 2017
UBC Undergraduate Statistic & Integrated Sciences Society

• Organized events, including career nights, programming workshops, and student meetups.
• Guided two junior students in academic and curriculum planning.

Visiting Scholar

Continuous-time Marginal Structural Models in Pharmacoepidemiology

Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), Toronto, Canada 🇨🇦
01.2020 - 12.2020

• Integrated causal inference & survival analysis for longitudinal pharmacoepidemiology.
• Used weighted case-base sampling as an alternative to Cox proportional hazards modeling.

Cross-paradigm Transfer Learning in Decoding EEG Signals with CNNs

Brain Computer Interface Lab EPFL, Geneva, Switzerland 🇨🇭
07.2018 - 09.2018

• Trained CNNs with transfer learning and compared to LDA for classifying ErrP EEG signals.

Computational Parametric Mapping with Neurometric Bayesian Framework

Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Copenhagen, Denmark 🇩🇰
01.2017 - 05.2017

• Simulated ground truth for Steven power law in fMRI BOLD signals via a Bayesian framework.

Publication

Dong, Y., Saglietti, C., Bayard, Q., Carpentier, et al., & Gottardo, R. & Madissoon, E.
Nature Communication (2025)
Bilous, M., Buszta, D., Bac, J., Kang, S., Dong, Y., et al., & Homicsko, K., Gottardo, R.
bioarxiv (2025)

Conference - Hackathon - Invited Talk

Marconato, L., et al., Dong, Y., et al., & Theis, F.J. & Stegle, O. (Oral Presentation)
European Bioconductor Conference, Barcelona, Spain. (2025)
Dong, Y., et al., & Robinson, M. (Workshop Oral Presentation)
European Bioconductor Conference, Barcelona, Spain. (2025)
Bilous, M., Buszta, D., Bac, J., Dong, Y., et al., & Homicsko, K., Gottardo, R. (Poster)
American Association for Cancer Research, Chicago, United States. (2025)
The current and future open-source landscape for disease biology in spatial transcriptomics
Dong, Y. (Invited Bioinformatics Seminar)
Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland. (2025)
Marconato, L., et al., Dong, Y., et al., & Carey, V.J. (Hackathon)
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), Basel, Switzerland. (2024)
A comprehensive benchmarking on the impact of normalization on spatial transcriptomics technologies
Dong, Y. & Gottardo, R. (Poster)
ETHZ ASCONA Spatial and Temporal Statistical Modeling in Molecular Biology, Ascona, Switzerland. (2024)
Dong, Y. & Weber L.M. (Workshop Oral Presentation)
European Bioconductor Conference, Oxford, United Kingdom. (2024)
Dong, Y., et al., & Gottardo, R. (Oral Presentation)
ETHZ Wolfsberg Swiss Immunology Student Conference, Ermatingen, Swizterland. (2024)
Rombaut B., et al., Dong, Y., et al., & Saeys, Y. (Hackathon)
VIB Spatial Omics Conference, Ghent, Belgium. (2024)
MOSAIC pilot study — an experimental integration of atlas-level single-cell and spatial transcriptomics data
Dong, Y., et al., & Gottardo, R. (Poster)
VIB Spatial Omics Conference, Ghent, Belgium. (2024)
Dong, Y., Guerra de Souza, A.C., Wyss, T. (Workshop Oral Presentation)
Basel Computational Biology Conference (BC2), Basel, Switzerland. (2023)
Dong, Y.*, Yan, M.*, Chang, Y.*, Raghavan, V.*, et al. (Oral Presentation)
American Society of Hematology, San Diego, United States / Virtual. (2020)
Marginal structural models for cumulative exposure effects in pharmacoepidemiology
Dong, Y., Saarela, O. and Cadarette, S. (Oral Presentation)
Canadian Statistics Student Conference, Ottawa, Canada / Virtual. (2020)

Awards

European Bioconductor Conference Travel Grant

2024 & 2025
Bioconductor, Oxford, United Kingdom; Barcelona, Spain

• Awarded to speakers in the 2024 & 2025 conferences.

Bayer Leadership Award

8.2022
Bayer, Toronto, Canada

• Nominated by colleagues for project contributions and leadership, with a 2nd-highest award.

Roche Personalized Healthcare Scholarship

8.2019
Roche, Basel, Switzerland

• Awarded to students to participate in R in Pharma 2019 conference in Boston.

Summer Research Program

7.2018
EPFL School of Life Science, Lausanne, Switzerland

• Awarded as one of the 25 funded scholars among 600 applicants globally.

UBC Go Global Award & DIS Scholarship

1.2017
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada & DIS, Copenhagen, Denmark

• Awarded to undergraduate students who participate in Research Abroad.

Faculty of Science International Scholarship & Dean’s Honor List

2014 - 2018
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

• Awarded with one 1st & two 2nd-highest honors, totaling $25,000.