About

I’m a computational biologist and currently a postdoc at SNL where I work on protein structural prediction and design. I did my dissertation work on the evolution of disordered protein sequences in Mike Eisen’s group as part of UC Berkeley’s Biophysics program. Before then, I spent a year at the NIH as a postbac where I worked in the NCATS DMPK Laboratory optimizing UPLC-MS/MS methods for candidate drug compounds. Though nowadays I’m more skilled with a keyboard than a pipette, I started my training at the bench as a chemistry major. In my first research experience, I was co-mentored by a stellar postdoc/grad student team split between a microbiology and mass spectrometry lab, respectively, which is how I landed a job doing bioanalytical chemistry right out of college. In the intervening years, I’ve steadily drifted towards the formal sciences. Fortunately, I also majored in applied math (another long story), so the transition was mostly a smooth one. I haven’t forgotten my roots, however, and while I love a fancy machine learning model, I’m always an advocate of working with collaborators to design a better experiment over needlessly torturing a data set.

My professional home base is broadly computational biology with an emphasis on comparative genomics, but I’m conversant in a range of disciplines. I have a particular soft spot for probabilistic modeling, including both traditional and machine learning flavors. (To me statistics has a similar role in mathematics as chemistry does in the natural sciences—both bridge the gap between theory and application and reveal surprising connections between seemingly unrelated concepts.) An engineer and designer probably also compete for space in my brain since I strive to write readable and robust code as well as create visualizations that are both beautiful and informative.

Outside of work, I enjoy exploring the broader Bay Area with my friends and partner, whether that’s trying new restaurants, seeing live music, spending time outdoors, or just plain hanging out. Some specific hobbies of mine are strength training, snowboarding, and hip-hop dancing, though I’m only good at maybe one of them. I also bake on occasion and love a strong cup of coffee.