Dr. Xuemei (Missi) Zhang is a plant pathologist and data scientist with ten years of data analysis experience in biological sciences. She completed her PhD at Virginia Tech, where she gained expertise in applied statistics, genomic data science, and machine learning. Since then, she has been collaborating with mechanical, biochemical, and biosystems engineers to develop automated plant disease detection systems. Dr. Zhang is familiar with statistical, genomic, and image data analysis, and her understanding of biological sciences allows her to apply data science techniques to solve biological data science problems and communicate with biological scientists effectively. She is interested in leveraging data science with biological sciences and engineering to tackle real-world challenges in Point-of-Care (POC) disease diagnosis and automated disease detection. Outside of her work, she finds inspiration and enjoyment in languages, cultures, and art.
Zhang, X., Vinatzer, B., & Li, S. (in review) Detecting tomato leaf spot disease with hyperspectral imaging and machine learning.
Zhang, X., Chen, J. Vinatzer, B., & Li, S. (in preparation) Early Detection of Pseudomonas syringae in tomato facilitated with microneedles and CRISPR Cas12a.
Zhang, X., Chen, J. Vinatzer, B., & Li, S. (in preparation) Subspecies-Specific Detection of Xylella fastidiosa using CRISPR Cas12a.
Dhakal, K., Sivaramakrishnan, U., Zhang, X., Belay, K., Oakes, J., Wei, X., & Li, S. (2023). Machine Learning Analysis of Hyperspectral Images of Damaged Wheat Kernels. Sensors, 23(7), 3523.
Zhang, X., Johnson, C., & Reed, D. (2022) Diversity of Pythium Species Recovered from Float-bed Tobacco Transplant Production Greenhouses. Plant Dis. https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-06-22-1438.
Zhang, X., Johnson, C., & Reed, D. (2021) Management of Pythium myriotylum in Tobacco Transplant Production Greenhouses. Plant Health Prog. https://doi.org/10.1094/PHP-03-21-0062-FI
Zhang, X., Jiang, H., & Hao, J. (2019). Evaluation of the Risk of Development of Fluopicolide Resistance in Phytophthora erythroseptica. Plant Dis. 103(2), 284-288