She holds a MD degree and two PhD degrees one in Molecular Epidemiology from the Chinese Academy of Medicine Science and one in Genetic Epidemiology from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Her current research interests focus in two areas: 1 Cardiovascular genetic epidemiology. Dr. Zhao is the Principal Investigator for several projects funded by NIH and AHA to identify genetic factors that might be involved in cardiovascular disease and its risk factors such as type 2 diabetes and major depression 2 Statistical genetics. Dr. Zhao has developed several novel methodologies for genomewide linkage and association analyses as well as gene x gene and gene x environment analyses. Her work has resulted in several significant publications in peerreviewed journals. Biography