About me Google Scholar CV Publications
Welcome!
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
I am also a Core Member of the NSF-Simons AI Institute for the Sky (SkAI Institute).
My research develops theoretical tools for modern machine learning, with an emphasis on random matrices, high-dimensional statistics, information theory, and iterative algorithms. I study applications including overparameterized models, neural networks, structured data, conformal prediction, and reinforcement learning.
In a nutshell, it is always about:
\[y = f_\theta(X; \epsilon) \in \mathbb{R}^n, \qquad X \in \mathbb{R}^{n \times d}, \qquad \theta \in \Theta.\]But at least one of the above is unusual — Explore my research themes above!
Contact
chcheng (at) illinois (dot) edu
Bio
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Prior to that, I was a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Statistics at the University of Chicago, mentored by Professor Rina Foygel Barber, and completed my PhD in Statistics at Stanford University, jointly advised by Professor John Duchi and Andrea Montanari. I was a recipient of the William R. Hewlett Stanford Graduate Fellowship. I received my Bachelor’s degree in Computational Mathematics from Peking University.
Employment
- Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2026.8 – Current
- Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Statistics, University of Chicago, 2025.8 – 2026.8
- Research Intern, LinkedIn Corporation, 2023.6 – 2023.9
Education
- Ph.D. in Statistics, Stanford University, 2019.9 – 2025.6
- B.S. in Mathematics, Peking University, 2015.9 – 2019.6