{"id":561,"date":"2026-09-07T19:53:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T19:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/?p=561"},"modified":"2026-09-07T19:53:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T19:53:25","slug":"join-the-zhang-lab-phd-students-wanted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/join-the-zhang-lab-phd-students-wanted\/","title":{"rendered":"Join the Zhang Lab \u2014 PhD Students Wanted"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Turn big questions in nutrition and microbiome science into real-world impact.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The <strong>Zhang Lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai<\/strong> is recruiting highly motivated <strong>PhD students<\/strong> who are passionate about improving liver and metabolic health through <strong>Food Is Medicine, microbiome science, multi-omics, and translational epidemiology<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Our research asks a simple but important question:<\/p>\n<p><strong>How can food, the microbiome, and metabolism be used to prevent and treat chronic liver disease?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Students in our lab will work at the intersection of <strong>nutrition, clinical research, microbiome science, metabolomics, proteomics, epidemiology, biostatistics, and real-world data<\/strong>. Current projects include NIH-funded dietary intervention studies, including our recently awarded <strong>NIDDK R01 evaluating isocaloric navy-bean substitution in adults with MASLD<\/strong>, as well as additional clinical and industry-sponsored research in MASLD\/MASH.<\/p>\n<h3>Why join the Zhang Lab?<\/h3>\n<p>You will have opportunities to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Work directly on <strong>NIH-funded clinical and translational research<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Analyze <strong>microbiome, metabolomics, proteomics, imaging, and longitudinal clinical data<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Develop expertise in <strong>causal inference, biostatistics, and real-world data analysis<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Lead abstracts, manuscripts, and conference presentations<\/li>\n<li>Receive <strong>personalized mentorship and career development<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Collaborate with investigators across <strong>nutrition, hepatology, epidemiology, and data science<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Conduct research with clear potential to improve <strong>patient care and population health<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We welcome students with backgrounds or strong interests in <strong>epidemiology, biostatistics, nutrition, microbiome science, bioinformatics, data science, or related fields<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h3>\ud83c\udf31 Your PhD can do more than answer a research question.<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Help us build the next generation of Food Is Medicine research for liver health.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udce9 <strong>Interested?<\/strong><br \/>\nSend your <strong>CV and a brief description of your research interests<\/strong> to:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Xiaotao Zhang, MD, PhD<\/strong><br \/>\nAssistant Professor, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai<br \/>\n<strong><a href=\"mailto:Xiaotao.Zhang@mountsinai.org\">Xiaotao.Zhang@mountsinai.org<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Nutrition | Microbiome | Metabolism | MASLD\/MASH | Multi-omics | Real-World Impact<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/479\/2026\/09\/PhD-students-wanted-flyer.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-559\" src=\"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/479\/2026\/09\/PhD-students-wanted-flyer.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1055\" height=\"1491\" srcset=\"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/479\/2026\/09\/PhD-students-wanted-flyer.png 1055w, https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/479\/2026\/09\/PhD-students-wanted-flyer-212x300.png 212w, https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/479\/2026\/09\/PhD-students-wanted-flyer-725x1024.png 725w, https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/479\/2026\/09\/PhD-students-wanted-flyer-768x1085.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1055px) 100vw, 1055px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Turn big questions in nutrition and microbiome science into real-world impact. The Zhang Lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is recruiting highly motivated PhD students who are passionate about improving liver and metabolic health through Food Is Medicine, microbiome science, multi-omics, and translational epidemiology. Our research asks a simple but important [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":606,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/606"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":562,"href":"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions\/562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/xiaotaozhanglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}