People
I am an Assistant Professor at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center. My primary appointment is in the BBE program within the Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Division. I enjoy trying to wrap my head around new ideas, and viral phylodynamics provides endless fodder to grapple with. In the lab we develop and apply new methods to understand how viruses evolve and spread in populations.
Outside of the lab, I enjoying playing sports (running, baseball, hockey etc.), and perpetually wish I knew more about music. I play the trumpet, and at one point was not terrible.
I am a Bioinformatic Analyst II at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, under the BBE program in the Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Division. I love applying computational techniques to novel biological questions, particularly in the realm of viral genome analysis. I earned a Master’s in Cellular, Microbial, and Molecular Biology and a Bachelor’s in Computer Science at the University of Montana and aspire to falling into the space between CS and Microbiology. I recently joined the McCrone lab (April 2024), and look forward to plumbing the depths of viral evolution through phylodynamics.
In my free time, I enjoy hiking, bird watching, playing games with friends, and cooking.
I am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Public Health Genetics (data science/ml track) at the University of Washington in the McCrone and Bedford labs under the joint mentorship of Dr. JT McCrone and Dr. Trevor Bedford.
For my research, I am starting with focusing on viral dynamics across biological scales from molecular to global phylodynamics linking within-host viral evolution to between-host viral dynamics. Additionally, I am interested in AI-driven predictive models such as Large Language Models (LLMs) to predict viral-host compatibility and enhance Nextstrain’s real-time tracking of pathogen evolution.
Prior, I formally trained as an epidemiologist, holding a MS in Genetic Epidemiology and worked at the California Department of Public Health’s Division of Communicable Disease Control in addition to completing a year-long field/applied epidemiology training program – UW Student Epidemic Action Leaders (SEAL) Team lead by Dr. Janet Baseman through the UW Dept. of Epidemiology. Some of my research experience includes roles at the UW Center for Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Disease Research in the Hawn Lab, the UW Institute for Protein Design in the Baker Lab, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and Harvard’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics.
More broadly, my interdisciplinary background across multiple biological scales converges on high level pandemic preparedness and response as part of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security - Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity (ELBI) Class of 2024. (See here – I attended the 1st ELBI meeting in Washington DC w/ the White House — Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR) lead by Major General (ret) Paul Friedrichs).
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow.
I’m currently working on vector representations and machine learning for phylogenetic trees, aiming to speed up tree inference for large (probably viral) data sets. In the past I’ve worked on machine learning models for complex trait prediction, as well as high-performance regression models with interactions. More generally, I’m interested in solving computationally difficult problems in biology.
Since moving to Seattle I’ve developed a serious rowing addiction.