Tell us a bit about yourself.

I joined the BIG program because I am passionate about using statistics and computer science to study cancer and make impacts in clinical care. My inital graduate research with Dr. Eli Van Allen focused on genomic characterization of germ cell tumors to dissect the molecular mechanism of their chemo-sensitivity. Afterwards I developed a method for measuring tumor in normal contamination and performing somatic mutation calling while modeling the normal sample as a mixture of tumor and normal DNA (https://github.com/broadinstitute/deTiN/). My current work is focused on combining data modalities to discover previously unappreciated drivers and vulnerabilities in cancer.

What is your academic background? What research experience did you have before grad school?

I went to Tufts University for my undergraduate experience. I double majored in Philosophy and Brain and Cognitive Science. After undergrad I did computational neuroscience research in Chris Dulla's lab for 2 years. After that I worked in Gad Getz's lab as an associate comp bio where I studied cancer genomics.

What is your research area and why is it exciting?

My research area is cancer genomics. It’s exciting because there are huge opportunities to impact clinical care and improve outcomes for patients.

What was your favorite class and why?

STAT110 and STAT210 are my all-time favorite classes. Prof. Blitzstein provides an entertaining and crystal clear introduction to probability.