Yating Zou

Department of Biostatistics, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Biostatistics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, advised by Michael R. Kosorok, and a graduate research assistant at the UNC Gillings Center for Artificial Intelligence and Public Health (CAIPH).


My research develops nonparametric methodology at the interface of distributional estimation, kernel methods, and reinforcement learning, with a focus on supporting sequential decision processes for real-world systems in structured environments. Structure here can come from dependent, missing, hierarchical data, as well as multi- and hierarchical agents.


contact: yating at live dot unc dot edu.

yating.jpg

selected publications

  1. Asymptotics of Nonparametric Estimation under General Non-monotone MAR Missingness: A Nonparametric Maximum Likelihood Approach
    Yating Zou, Huimin Hu, Jeffrey Näf, 2026
    [paper][arxiv]
  2. Distributional Random Forests for Complex Survey Designs
    Yating Zou, Marcos Matabuena, Michael R. Kosorok, 2025
    Under review
    [paper][arxiv]
  3. Latent Utility Q-Learning for Preference-Adaptive Dynamic Treatment Regimes
    Joshua P. Zitovsky†, Yating Zou†, Leslie Wilson, Michael R. Kosorok, 2023
    In revision with JASA. † Joint first authors
    [paper][arxiv]