Lianlian Du, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Neurological Sciences
Lianlian Du, PhD
Rush Medical College
Assistant Professor, Department of Neurological Sciences

Biostatistician, Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center 

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  • Biography

    Lianlian Du, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurological Sciences and a faculty statistician at the RUSH Alzheimer’s Disease Center. She earned her PhD in Biomedical Data Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2023. During her PhD, she served as a Research Assistant at the UW Madison Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute and the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center for over three years. Following this, she worked as an associate scientist in the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before joining RADC, where she developed data science methodologies, explored various aspects related to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia—such as modifiable risk factors, cognitive reserve, and clinical trials—and published extensively. She also actively collaborated with researchers from diverse fields.

    Her research interests include longitudinal modeling in Alzheimer's disease (AD) using cognitive and imaging data, and understanding how modifiable factors, including sex, influence the onset and progression of amyloid and tau positivity and their subsequent associations with longitudinal cognitive trajectories. Her professional focus is on modeling longitudinal cognition and biomarkers before, during, and after the onset of AD using Bayesian methods. By understanding the natural history of AD and the rates of change in clinical phenotypes and biomarkers, she aims to identify high-risk participants for early intervention in clinical trials. She is also interested in imaging and genetic analysis using machine learning methods and genetic software to understand the multiple pathologies involved in AD.