Dr. Anh Cao
Program Director
Dr. Cao holds a Ph.D. in Immunology from Harvard University and an M.S. in Immunology from the University of Toronto. He has extensive research experience in the field, with publications in Cell, Nature Communications, and Science Advances. During his time at Harvard, Dr. Cao organized multiple international symposia, workshops, and events addressing the issue of forced organ harvesting. As the director of the Northern Lights Summer Camp, he is committed to providing a well-rounded experience by combining the expertise of distinguished lecturers with a wide range of extracurricular activities available both on campus and across New York.
Dr. Joseph Zhao
Ph.D., STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Dr. Joseph Zhao received his Ph.D. from Stanford University and worked as a faculty member at the University of Minnesota. More than 10 years ago, he resigned from his tenured full professor position at Minnesota to join the development of Fei Tian College Northern Campus (FTC Northern), in Middletown, New York.
Dr. Zhao’s main technical expertise is on the applications of various optimization, AI, and data analysis methods to solve practical problems. He supervised numerous graduate students in their research, and they together produced many peer-reviewed publications. In addition, Dr. Zhao is passionate about teaching. At Minnesota, he received Outstanding Teaching Award in his first year of teaching career. At FTC Northern, he seeks to develop ways for the clear and effective teaching of advanced technical subjects such as AI and quantum computing.
Marilyn Torley, Ed.D
M.Ed., ANGELO STATE UNIVERSITY
Ed.D. IN ADMINISTRATION IN EDUCATION (K-12), SETON HALL UNIVERSITY
Marilyn Torley, Ed.D. is a qualified administrator and holds a K-12 School Administration doctorate degree from Seton Hall University. No stranger to the education world, having spent 30 years working in school districts and universities. Dr. Torley enjoys creating an environment where students are able to go through the creative process from an idea to physical realization of that creative spark. Providing students with the necessary space and time to create is one of her favorite aspects of teaching.
Dr. Zheng Qu
PH.D. IN ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Professor Zheng Qu holds a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from the University of Chicago (1999) and is currently an Associate Professor in the Data Science Program at Fei Tian College, Middletown, NY. Since 2018, he has been teaching Data Mining and Machine Learning courses at the college. Before joining Fei Tian, he accumulated 20 years of research experience in academia and industry. From 1999 to 2002, he served as a Research Scientist at the Center for Study of the Earth from Space at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 2003, he joined NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he worked on satellite remote sensing of Mars and Earth. Between 2005 and 2018, he was a Senior Physics Engineer at Raytheon Company, jointly working at NASA-JPL, with a research emphasis on satellite data simulation, data engineering, and statistical analysis of Earth science data. Additionally, from 2019 to 2023, he provided data science consulting services to Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., analyzing oncology biomarker data.
Jiashu Zhao
B.S. in Pure Mathematics, University of California
M.S. in Statistics, Illinois State University
Michael Chen
B.S. IN DATA SCIENCE, FEI TIAN COLLEGE AT MIDDLETOWN
Michael Chen is a graduate from Fei Tian College at Middletown with a Bachelors in Data Science. He has been working as an IT specialist for 2 years. Michael is passionate about teaching others and challenges them to go even further beyond.