Bio

I am a computational biologist with interests in molecular evolution, NGS data analysis, and biological data science. I enjoy analyzing massive amounts of a wide variety of biological data. I strive to rapidly extract information and provide insights to biologists, clinicians, and epidemiologists. My ultimate aim is to shorten feedback loops between humans and instruments with computers, thereby accelerating the pace of translational results in medicine and public health.

I completed my Bachelors in Mathematics at Temple University. I earned my Ph. D. in Applied Mathematics studying numerical linear algebra under Daniel Szyld, also at Temple University. I eventually found my way into biology as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of David Liberles at Temple.This was followed by a position as a Software Developer in the lab of Sergei Pond, also at Temple. In case you were still wondering, yes, I am indeed Temple made!

I am endlessly fascinated by both the computing and biological data revolutions. I am passionate about assisting biologists to use computers, from laptops to high-performance clusters, to get information they seek from their data. I believe deeply that we have only begun to scratch the surface in terms of the mathematical modeling necessary to extract insight from rich data driven by complex biology. I view molecular evolutionary paradigms such as phylogenetic biology and population biology as the ultimate tools for biological data analysis, and enjoy both using and developing them. I have primarily worked on the HyPhy andDatamonkey platforms for evolutionary sequence analysis, the Galaxy platform for general bioinformatics, and the Secure HIV-TRACE platform for molecular surveillance of HIV.

In my spare time I enjoy reading, listening to and playing music, playing chess, running, cycling, strength training, doing yoga, going hiking, cooking and baking, enjoying good food, and traveling.