Academic Credentials
  • M.S., Wild Land Resources Management, University of California, Berkeley, 1992
  • M.A., Statistics, University of California, Berkeley, 1992
  • B.S., Electrical Engineering, Northeast Forestry University, China, 1982
Licenses & Certifications
  • ASQ Certified Reliability Engineer (CRE)
  • Oracle 8i Certified Professional Database Administrator
Professional Honors
  • Oracle 8i Certified Professional Database Administrator
Professional Affiliations
  • American Statistical Association (ASA member)
  • American Society for Quality (ASQ member)
  • National Fire Protection Association (NFPA member)

Mr. Zhao has more than 26 years of specialized experience in statistical analysis in the areas of consumer product and medical device failure risk investigation, occupational health problems, traffic accident risk, and medical device development. His research also focuses on reliability analysis, particularly in terms of failure mode detection, validation of root cause and contributing factors, failure incident forecast, and failure rate comparison. 

Mr. Zhao's areas of statistical expertise include machine learning, classification algorithms in data mining and data analytics, regression, logistic regression, life data regression, experimental design, power calculation, categorical data analysis, statistical hypothesis testing, confidence interval calculation, and epidemiological mortality analysis. His computing expertise covers SAS, R, Reliasoft Weibull++, WinSmith Weibull, and administration of very large databases.

Mr. Zhao works with companies addressing the statistical aspects of product recalls as well as reporting to regulatory agencies such as Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and FDA. He performs statistical failure analysis investigations and addresses issues related to product field performance and reliability, including time-to-failure analysis, Weibull mixture model, warranty claims prediction, contributing factor analysis, identification of susceptible product populations, EU rapid alert system (RAPEX), and incident forecasting. He also performs Monte Carlo simulations, sampling analyses using Bootstrap methods, and predictive analytics.

He has presented his technical findings to CPSC staff for companies facing product recall concerns. He has also taught statistical risk assessment to design and safety managers of multinational manufacturers of consumer products. He provides statistical analysis in occupational health, automotive, mechanical, biomechanical, and electrical device consulting services to clients. Systems and devices in his statistical failure analysis experience include appliances, computers and consumer electronics, implanted medical devices, and semiconductor components. Large databases he has used in his research include NFIRS, NEISS, FDA MAUDE, FARS, NASS CDS/CISS, GES/CRSS, and traffic accident records from various states.

Prior to re-joining Exponent, Mr. Zhao was a Senior Database Application Engineer at AppGenesys Inc., in San Jose, California, where he provided analytical services with application databases to various clients.