Jing Ma, PhD
Dr. Jing Ma is a biostatistician who works as an assistant professor in the Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutch Cancer Center. She is a first-generation college graduate who grew up on a farm in rural China. Now she uses the power of statistical and computational methods to analyze data on the microbiome. She translates these findings to improve health for humans and their companion animals. As a research collaborator of the Dog Aging Project, she is contributing important knowledge about the relationships between gut microbiota and the brain and how it affects health, aging, and longevity. Spoiler alert: feeding your pet dog just once a day is associated with better health outcomes. In addition to her role at Fred Hutch, Dr. Ma is also Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Washington and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at Texas A&M University.
Fred Hutch Faculty Profile
Lab Website
Twitter
What is Biostatistics?
Biostatistics is a specialty within the mathematical field of statistics that focuses on analyzing data related to living organisms. Biostatisticians may focus on analyzing, evaluating, and understanding data from biological sciences (e.g., plants, animals, ecology), medical sciences (e.g., disease, nutrition, treatments, genetics), or – like Dr. Ma – public health sciences (e.g., disease prevention, infectious diseases, health disparities).
In her own words, Dr. Ma described the work of biostatisticians like herself as “try[ing] to make sense of the large amounts of data collected in public health research.” She provided the following story to explain the role of biostatistics in patient health:
“When you visit a doctor, he/she may take a blood draw or a urine/fecal sample which is then translated into data about you via a machine. For example, there may exist patterns in the data that can distinguish healthy from cancer patients. Typically, these patterns are not obvious to human eyes and require statistical tools. By identifying these patterns, we are more likely to detect cancer early or provide better cancer treatment.”
"I love math and statistics. The best part of my job is that I get to think about the best way of interpreting complex data, which can be philosophical. Sometimes the best idea does not come when you most desire it, but on your dinner table or during a walk.”
—Jina Ma, Ph.D.
Dr. Ma's Story
Childhood and Adolescence
Dr. Ma grew up as a child of farmers living in a rural village in the ancient city of Shangqiu. Her village is located within the eastern Henan Province of China. Henan is China’s third most populous province, and according to the 2020 Chinese census has a population of over 99 million people (compare that to the total population of the USA at over 332 million). Agriculture is an important part of the province’s economy, especially for wheat, sesame, and rice.
Dr. Ma noted that even with such a large population, Henan province has some of the lowest admission rates for Chinese college entrance exams. As a child, she sometimes thought about becoming a scientist as a future career “even though I had no idea what a scientist does for a living, nor did I know which area of science I'd like to study.” She thought it was “the coolest title” she had heard for a job from her teachers at school and from TV shows. But how would she go from a girl living on a farm to becoming a scientist? It turned out that mathematics was the entry point into her career as a research scientist. As she recalled, “I've been very into and good at math growing up.”
When she was sixteen years old, Dr. Ma was invited to travel to the province’s capital city to participate in a math contest. Her trip to Zhengzhou was the first time she rode on a public bus and the first time that she saw a university. She reflected, “City life was so different, so I told myself!”
Pursuing Higher Education in China and the US
Dr. Ma attended Fudan University in Shanghai, China’s most populous city located about an eight hour drive from her childhood home. This was the first time in her life when she met actual scientists. At university, she received her bachelor’s degree in Mathematics.
She then chose to search for a doctoral program that would leverage her mathematics background in service of a larger goal. She recalled that at the time, “I often felt that math is a little detached from the real world; that's when I decided to switch to statistics at graduate school.” Dr. Ma explained that “switching from mathematics to statistics [was] very natural for me, because the two fields share many similarities.” She explained, “While mathematics deals with mostly abstract constructs, statistics allows me to understand the world better.” Dr. Ma chose to study statistics at the University of Michigan because of its stellar reputation. It was time to pack her bags for an international move!
During graduate school in Michigan, she worked under the supervision of Dr. George Michailidis (now at the University of Florida) who helped shape her research agenda. Dr. Ma became interested in high-dimensional data analysis and network biology, integrating a focus on biology to her background in mathematics and statistical analysis. After graduation, she transitioned to a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology and the Department of Statistics at the University of Pennsylvania, at which point she was mentored by Dr. Hongzhe Li and Dr. Tony Cai.
Next, Dr. Ma was offered a faculty position at Fred Hutch Cancer Center and worked in Seattle between 2017 and 2019. However, she and her husband experienced what is known in academia as the two-body problem. This term explains the difficulty that a couple may experience when both are searching for full-time academic jobs in the same geographical location at the same time. The couple couldn’t both make Seattle work at that time, so they instead both accepted jobs at Texas A&M University to try out life in the South. A year later, she and her husband moved back to Seattle. Dr. Ma returned to Fred Hutch Cancer Center and her husband accepted a job in the Seattle tech industry.
Education Pathway
Undergraduate: B.S. in Mathematics with University Distinction (Highest) from Fudan University in Shanghai, China, 2010.
Doctorate: Ph.D. in Statistics at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI, 2015. Advisor: Prof. George Michailidis.
Postdoctoral Training: Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology and the Department of Statistics at University of Pennsylvania, 2015-2017.
Outside of Work
Dr. Ma loves to dance. As a student, she used to take Zumba classes but now she usually dances along with various fitness apps. At home, she enjoys working on jigsaw puzzles and cooking meals. Dr. Ma and her husband also enjoy hiking together in the mountains surrounding Seattle.
A Day in the Life of a Biostatistician
As an assistant professor in the Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutch, Dr. Ma explains that she is “an office-based scientist” who is responsible for “developing an active research program, applying for research funding, managing my research group, and contributing to the successful operation of scientific studies.” On a given day, she can usually be found working in front of a computer, talking with her students and research collaborators, or giving a presentation about the latest research from her group.
Her work at Fred Hutch is highly collaborative. Dr. Ma explained, “I work with scientists from many different fields, but all in biomedical science.” She continued, “Some of them are gerontologist who are interested in the biology of aging, some are interested in combating cancer, and others study cardiovascular diseases.” She added, “I also work with other biostatisticians to research new statistical methods if existing methods cannot answer our scientific question.” In these research collaborations, Dr. Ma may offer advice from her perspective as a biostatistician on how to design a new study, or she may consider how to interpret and make sense of the data once a study is complete.
The Value of Uncertainty in Science
One of the greatest challenges she faces as a researcher is uncertainty, which she described as “both challenging and exciting.” She explained, “Uncertainty not only means that we are not sure about what is going to happen at work but is [also] a statistical concept.” She continued, “As a statistical concept, it means we are not 100% confident about a certain statistic (e.g., the number of people infected with COVID-19) and knowing about the statistical uncertainty is often crucial for understanding the spread or variability of a statistic.” However, she shared, “On the other hand, a lot of scientific research is exploratory.” As such, she explained, “An idea may not work out as expected, in which case we must change direction – sometimes this means wasted time and resources.” Dr. Ma acknowledged, however, that “great discoveries often occur in exploratory research”, making the aspect of uncertainty in scientific research both challenging and exciting.
Learning about Humans by Studying their Companion Animals
You might be surprised to learn that a Fred Hutch scientist has been involved in studying the biology of aging…not in humans, but in their companion dogs. Dr. Ma is one of the research collaborators for the Dog Aging Project, a massive community science and open-data project launched in 2018 that – according to their website – brings together research scientists and veterinarians from more than twenty research institutions (like Fred Hutch and the University of Washington) and veterinary teaching hospitals. The research project depends on an extensive network of community scientists (dog owners) across the US who volunteer their pets, both young and old. Currently, over 30,000 dogs are enrolled in the project. Participating dog owners fill out surveys and provide veterinarian records to build a large dataset. This dataset is then used by scientists to investigate the genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors associated with healthy lifespan in companion dogs (Creevy, et al., 2022). Some dogs are invited to participate in additional research projects for which their veterinarian may provide biospecimens, such as blood, urine, fecal, hair, and cheek swab samples. In addition, researchers look up publicly available environmental data based on each dog’s home address, such as sociodemographic data, economic data, air pollution measures, neighborhood walk scores, and other variables.
Dr. Ma explained, “The goal of this project is to understand the biology of aging using dogs as a model for human aging.” She continued, “Like humans, dogs experience a wide range of diseases, including cancer. There is also a well-established health care system for dogs.” Dr. Ma emphasized, “Perhaps more importantly, dogs age much more rapidly, and so allow us to study the aging process in a much shorter time frame compared to human aging studies.”
Dr. Ma described one of her current research projects, which examines the burden of disease and how it affects dogs of different sizes and ages. "Aging is much more complex than studying a single disease. As dogs age, it is often the case that they develop multiple diseases, ranging from infectious diseases, neurological disorders, to cancer. One problem I worked on with my students is to understand how the canine comorbidity network varies by dog age and size. A comorbidity network is a network of diseases where two diseases are linked by an edge if they occur in the same dog more often than expected by chance. We found that the comorbidity network of younger dogs is represented by a subset of diseases different from those among older dogs, suggesting that older dogs have different disease burden from younger dogs. The network of older dogs is much more connected than that of younger dogs, indicating that dogs accrue more comorbidities as they age. The knowledge we learned can be very helpful for canine health care management."
Advice for Students
Dr. Ma offered this advice for high school students: “If you like math and statistics, do not let the stereotype deter you.” For example, she credits Drs. Elizaveta Levina and Susan Murphy for serving as role models for women statisticians/scientists. Dr. Ma shared that during her graduate school years, “they encouraged me to pursue interesting problems and to stand up for leadership roles.”
While in graduate school, Dr. Ma attended statistics conferences where she met inspiring scientists from universities across the US, such as Dr. Bin Yu from UC Berkeley and Dr. Hongzhe Li from University of Pennsylvania (who later became her postdoc mentor). Dr. Ma shared, “Meeting statisticians/scientists from a similar ethnic background had [a] great, positive impact on my career.”
“Even if you don't know what you want for a career now, it is important to learn so that you are prepared when the opportunity hits upon you.”
— Jing Ma, Ph.D.
U.S. Wage Information
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, the median wage for statisticians in the U.S. in 2023 was $104,110.
Additional Resources
Credit: Thank you to Dr. Jing Ma for generously participating in this project. Headshot from Robert Hood / Fred Hutch News Service. Personal photos provided by Dr. Ma. Profile written by Dr. Kristen Bergsman.