Shelley H Liu, PhD

Dr. Shelley Liu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health Science and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biostatistics at Harvard University, and her B.A. in Biological Sciences and Statistics from Northwestern University.

Dr. Liu develops data science methods for exposomics, to study the cumulative impacts of environmental and non-genetic risk factors on health. Her research group led the development of “exposome burden scores”, a novel tool that quantifies the cumulative impact of the exposome on health outcomes using item response theory. She is Principal Investigator of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 to develop a health informatics tool for exposomics, called the “PFAS exposure burden calculator”. This tool quantifies a person’s total exposure to PFAS environmental toxins, and develops a common exposure burden scale across studies. She is also Principal Investigator of a NIH K25 Career Development Award. In this award, she uses psychometrics to study how the perinatal exposome impacts child neurodevelopment. Her research integrates psychometrics, item response theory, Bayesian inference and machine learning, with an emphasis on cross-study harmonization and dimension reduction. In addition, she collaborates as a biostatistics co-investigator on NIH funded grants on Alzheimer’s Disease, diabetes, cardio-metabolic outcomes, health policy, environmental health and sleep health.

Dr. Liu’s research impact has been recognized nationally and internationally. Dr. Liu’s research has been published in high-impact exposomics journals, including Environmental Health Perspectives, Environmental Science and Technology, and Current Environmental Health Reports. Her research has also been featured in news outlets such as NBC News and The Guardian. She is Vice-Chair of the American Heart Association Scientific Statement Writing Group, on “Evaluation and Management of PFAS Exposure to Promote Cardiovascular and Brain Health”. She is an Associate Editor of the journal Biostatistics, a leading biostatistical methodology journal.

Dr. Liu is also committed to teaching and mentoring. She taught a course on Categorical Data Analysis for several years. She is a co-mentor on three NIH-funded K awards, and serves on dissertation committees and as research advisor. She gladly welcomes inquiries about new collaborations, as well as inquiries from students seeking research projects.