Aparna Nathan

Aparna Nathan

Advisor: Soumya Raychaudhuri
Aparna Nathan

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

 

I came to BIG right after undergrad, where I majored in Computer Science and Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry. Before grad school, I was originally an experimental biologist working in a protein biophysics lab. I got my first exposure to bioinformatics research in a proteomics lab, then started working with RNA-seq data from the brain.

 

What is your research area and why is it exciting?

 

I do research in the realm of functional genomics, specifically working with single-cell sequencing data. It's exciting because it gives us a chance to ask questions about the heterogeneity of human tissue that we've never been able to ask before. There are huge amounts of data now, but we don't yet have all the methods to analyze it — that's where bioinformatics comes in! There are so many really interesting problems, and I love being in a field that's just starting to be explored.

 

Why did you choose BIG?

 

I chose BIG because it offers access to so many resources: through Harvard, HMS, the Broad, all of the teaching hospitals in the Longwood area. There are hundreds of labs, PIs, and other scientists for us to work with, and access to almost any technology or samples we can imagine. But it's not just scientific resources — we get the focused resources of a small program, but we're also part of a larger graduate student community at the medical school and main campus that provides us with more academic resources and a group of friends across multiple disciplines. I also appreciate that the program is situated at the medical campus, because we're surrounded by the motivation for what we're doing: research that can improve people's health and quality of life.

 

How do you like living in Boston? What do you do when you are not working?

 

I love Boston! I think it's the perfect size for a city: not too small, but also not too big. It's very possible to explore all its different neighborhoods, restaurants, and events. When I'm not in lab, I go to a lot of restaurants and museums (they're mostly free with our Harvard ID!) I also volunteer with a mobile farmer's market and at a non-profit human services agency to get more involved in the community.

 

What advice would you give to college students who are interested in a PhD in genomics/bioinformatics?

 

Find a way to do research in a computational lab! Even if those kinds of labs aren't available at your college, there are a lot of other places (universities, government agencies, companies) that you can go to get that experience. Also, take statistics classes — it's really easy for it to fall through the cracks if you're majoring in computer science or biology, but it is essential for research. Lastly, don't worry about whether or not you want to be a professor yet — a PhD, in itself, can be a really formative time, and it opens the door to a lot of careers outside of academia too.

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Hometown: Chappaqua, NY

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