Xuejuan Jiang, PhD

As a seasoned epidemiologist, Dr. Xuejuan Jiang possesses expertise in designing, managing, and analyzing epidemiological studies. Currently, she is at the forefront of an international endeavor aimed at consolidating all existing population-based studies of eye diseases in preschool children, with the goal of creating the largest repository of population-based survey data on vision health among this age group. Additionally, she serves as the Principal Investigator for a study investigating the relationship between intrauterine exposure to smoking, DNA methylation, and ocular disorders in multiethnic children.

Dr. Jiang’s research interests extend to evaluating the impact of race/ethnicity, various environmental factors, and genetic risk factors in various eye-related conditions, including neurodevelopmental (e.g., amblyopia), neurodegenerative (e.g., glaucoma), and microvascular diseases (e.g., retinopathy). She has contributed as a co-investigator in pivotal studies such as the Los Angeles Latino Eye Study (LALES), the Chinese American Eye Study (CHES), and the African American Eye Disease Study (AFEDS). Notably, she has led investigations employing Spectral-Domain Optic Coherence Tomography (OCT) images obtained from African Americans, Chinese Americans, and Latinos, assessing racial/ethnic disparities and identifying genetic and biological determinants of imaging biomarkers associated with neurodegeneration. Presently, she spearheads projects examining retinal vascular complications linked to sickle cell trait in African Americans and the impact of sickle cell trait on innovative neuroimaging markers of cerebral small vascular disease (CSVD).

Dr. Jiang has also collaborated on the MarkVCID consortium, which aims to identify and validate biomarkers for brain small vessel diseases contributing to cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID). She also leads a project to systematically evaluate metrics of small vessel morphology/density and perfusion as imaging biomarkers of VCID in a multiethnic longitudinal cohort.

• University of Science and Technology of China — BS — 2002 — Molecular & Cellular Biology
• University of Southern California — MS — 2004 — Applied Biostatistics & Epidemiology
• University of Southern California — PhD — 2007 — Epidemiology

• Imaging Cerebral Small Vessels in Vascular Cognitive Impairment and Dementia (VCID)
  NIH · R01AG084072 · Sep 1, 2023 – Aug 31, 2028 · Role: Co-Principal Investigator
• Imaging Cerebral Small Vessels in Vascular Cognitive Impairment and Dementia (VCID)
  NIH · RF1AG084072 · Sep 1, 2023 – Aug 31, 2026 · Role: Co-PI
• Integrating Genetics and Epigenetics to the Study of Smoking's Effect on Children's Vision
  TRDRP · Jul 1, 2022 – Jun 30, 2025 · Role: Principal Investigator
• Intrauterine exposure to tobacco smoke, DNA methylation, and vision disorders in preschool children
  NIH · R01EY030560 · Sep 1, 2019 – Jul 31, 2025 · Role: Principal Investigator
• Cumulative Effects of Sickle Cell Trait on the Eye among Older African Americans
  NIH · R21EY028721 · Mar 1, 2018 – Feb 28, 2021 · Role: Principal Investigator
• The Pediatric Eye Disease Consortium: a Pooled Analysis of Individual-Participant Data from Population-based Studies
  NIH · R21EY025313 · Jun 1, 2015 – May 31, 2018 · Role: Principal Investigator

• Xu, Benjamin
• Daneshmand, Siamak
• Shahidi, Mahnaz
• Jang, Yuri
• Haiman, Christopher
• Djaladat, Hooman