Dr. Yinfei Kong

Full Professor of Business Analytics

Department of Information Systems & Decision Sciences
College of Business & Economics, California State University Fullerton

CSUF College of Business and Economics University of Southern California PhD, USC

About Me

Researcher · Educator · Data Scientist

Dr. Yinfei Kong is a full professor with tenure at the Department of Information Systems and Decision Sciences, College of Business and Economics, California State University Fullerton.

He received his PhD degree in biostatistics from the University of Southern California in 2016. His academic advisors are Professors Jinchi Lv and Yingying Fan from the Data Sciences and Operations Department, as well as Professor Daniel O. Stram from the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences.

Dr. Kong is interested in big data analytics and applications in business and healthcare. He has many years of experience analyzing large-scale substance abuse treatment data (with Dr. Erick Guerrero, www.isated.com), healthcare data, and more.

Research at a Glance

Key numbers from over a decade of scholarly work

50+
Publications
$5.8M+
Grant Funding
3
NIH R01 Grants
20+
Journals Refereed
📊

Big Data Analytics

Deep learning, machine learning, high-dimensional statistics, and interaction screening methods. Published in top journals including Annals of Statistics, PNAS, JMLR, and JBES.

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Healthcare Applications

Statistical applications in substance abuse treatment, opioid use disorder, health disparities, and treatment retention. Over 30 publications in health equity research.

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Genetics & Genomics

Cancer prognosis from multi-omics data, Alzheimer's disease methylation profiling, and lymphoma susceptibility studies.

Research Interests

Big Data Analytics

Deep Learning

Machine Learning

Statistical Applications in Business & Healthcare

Selected Publications

Top-venue papers across methodology and applied domains  ·  AoS (2), PNAS (1), JBES (2), JMLR (1), HSR (1)

Big Data Methodology

[1] Fan, Y., Kong, Y., Li, D. & Zheng, Z. (2015). Innovated interaction screening for high-dimensional nonlinear classification. Annals of Statistics 43, 1243–1272.
PDF Supplement
[2] Kong, Y., Zheng, Z. & Lv, J. (2016). The constrained Dantzig selector with enhanced consistency. JMLR 17, 1-22.
PDF
[3] Kong, Y., Li, D., Fan, Y. & Lv, J. (2017). Interaction pursuit in high-dimensional multi-response regression via distance correlation. Annals of Statistics 45, 897-922.
PDF
[4] Zhu, Z., Fan, Y., Kong, Y., Lv, J. and Sun, F. (2021). DeepLINK: deep learning inference using knockoffs with applications to genomics. PNAS, 118(36) e2104683118.
PDF
[5] Li, D., Kong, Y., Fan, Y. & Lv, J. (2022). High-Dimensional Interaction Detection with False Sign Rate Control. JBES 40(3), 1234-1245.
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[6] Kong, Y., Zhou, J., Zheng, Z., Amaro, H., & Guerrero, E. (2021). Using Machine Learning to Advance Disparities Research: Subgroup Analyses in Access to Opioid Treatment. Health Services Research 1-11.
PDF
[7] Luo, J., Kong, Y., Li, G. (2025). From Penalization to Over-parameterization: Achieving Implicit Regularization for High-dimensional Linear Errors-in-Variables Models. JBES, Accepted.

Health Equity (Selected — 30 Total)

[1] Marsh, J.C., Amaro, H., Kong, Y., et al. (2021). Gender Disparities in Access and Retention in Methadone Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder. J. Substance Abuse Treatment 127, 108399.
[2] Guerrero, E., Amaro, H., Kong, Y., et al. (2021). Gender disparities in opioid treatment progress in methadone versus counseling. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy 16(1), 1-10.
[3] Kong, Y., Guerrero, E., et al. (2024). A machine learning approach to unravel client and program-specific effects in opioid treatment retention. Artificial Intelligence in Health.
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… and 27 more publications in health equity research. See full list on Google Sites.

Genetics

[1] Rand, K., et al. (2016). A meta-analysis of multiple myeloma risk regions in African and European ancestry populations. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention 25, 1609-18.
[2] Piras, IS, Brokaw, D, Kong, Y., et al. (2023). Integrated DNA methylation/RNA profiling in middle temporal gyrus of Alzheimer's disease. Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology.
[3] Berndt, SI, et al. (2023). Distinct germline genetic susceptibility profiles identified for common non-Hodgkin lymphoma subtypes. Leukemia 37, 2142.

Book Chapters

[1] Li, D., Kong, Y., Zheng, Z. & Pan, J. (2022). Recent Advances in Big Data Analytics. The Palgrave Handbook of Operations Research, 805.
[2] Guerrero, E., Khachikian, T., Kong, Y. & Vega, W. (2015). Achieving Sobriety among Latino Older Adults. Challenges of Latino Aging in the Americas, Springer.

Research Grants

2020 – 2025
NIH R01 MD014639 — $3.2 million (Amount to PI: $316k)
2019 – 2023
NIH R01 DA048176 — $2.2 million (Amount to PI: $367k)
2019 – 2020
Junior/Senior Intramural Grant — $5k
2015 – 2018
NIDA R01 DA038608-01A1 — $450k (Amount to PI: $102k)
Detection, Understanding and Reduction of Latino Subgroup Health Care Disparities
2014
Hamovitch Research Fellowship — $9k
Statistical methods for analyzing organizational capacity, and cultural competence in substance abuse treatment
2013 – 2014
Innovation Diploma Grant, USC — $5k
Improving complex disease prediction using advanced variable selection methods

Awards & Honors

2016 – Present
Excellent in Research at CSUF — every year
2017
Excellence in Research Award Honorable Mention — Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR)
2015
ICSA Student Travel Award
2014
Academic Professional Development Training Award — USC
2008
Meritorious Winner — Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM)

Teaching

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ISDS 574

Data Mining for Managers

⚙️

ISDS 474

Data Mining for Business Applications

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ISDS 361a

Business Analytics

Media Coverage

CSUF News: Which Information-Systems Master's Is Best for You?
Article 1 Article 2
CSUF Office of Research: Faculty Spotlight
Article
CSUF News: Titan Data Scientist to Study Gender Differences in Opioid Treatment
Article
CSUF Research Spotlight: Understanding Gender Disparities in Opioid Treatment
Article
CSUF News: From Medicine to Business — How Yinfei Kong Is Advancing Big-Data Analytics at CSUF
Article
Faculty Award
Article

Referee Services

Peer review for leading journals

Annals of Statistics JASA Biometrika Statistica Sinica Biometrics Bioinformatics JCGS JMVA Statistics in Medicine Statistics and Computing Scandinavian J. Stats SPL AISM Comm. in Stats Computational Stats J. of Classification HSR BMC HSR AI in Medicine Clinical Epidemiology Psychiatry Research Children & Youth Services Review Genes

Get in Touch

Feel free to reach out for collaboration or inquiries

✉️   yikong at fullerton dot edu