Education

January 2015 - September 2017

University of Oregon

Master of Science in Biology

Bioinformatics and Genomics Master’s Program

Enrolled in a traditional biology master’s program for 1.5 years, conducting graduate research in evolutionary biology, prior to acceptance into the Bioinformatics and Genomics Master’s Program for this degree
Completed coursework in bioinformatics, genomics, and molecular biology

September 2010 - December 2014

University of Oregon

Bachelor of Science in Biology

Emphasis in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology; minor in Chemistry
Graduated Magna Cum Laude with departmental honors
Completed coursework in biochemistry, genetics, evolution, programming, and statistics

Experience

January 2018 - present

Research Associate

Portland VA Research Foundation/Computational Biology Program at Oregon Health and Science University

Analyze publicly available sequencing data from cancer patients to identify genomic predictors of response to immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment
Collaboratively develop and benchmark open-source, extensively unit-tested, pip installable python software for neoepitope prediction
Train machine learning models to characterize proteasomal cleavage sites based on protein sequence context
Fluently use state of the art genomics software, personalized python scripts, R-based statistical analysis, bash scripting, and job scheduling for parallel computing

January 2017 - December 2017

Computational Biology Internship

Computational Biology Program at Oregon Health and Science University

Developed a neoepitope prediction method that improves upon existing methods by incorporating phasing of variants in shared haplotypes
Identified population-level distributions of neoepitopes in genomic data from The Cancer Genome Atlas and evaluated criteria for improved prioritization of predicted neoepitopes
Used and adapted of a variety of bioinformatics software for sequence alignment, variant calling, HLA type prediction, neoepitope prediction, and more

January 2017 - December 2017

CRISPR Data Analysis Project

Bioinformatics and Genomics Master’s Program at Oregon Health and Science University

Evaluated the success of CRISPR/Cas9 treatment as a potential therapy to correct the sickle cell anemia SNP
Determined the precision of editing and zygosity of edits in clones of CRISPR-treated cells using GATK HaplotypeCaller to identify mutations

January 2015 - December 2016

Graduate Teaching Fellow

Department of Biology at University of Oregon

Led two weekly laboratory sections of 16-32 students each for undergraduate biology courses
Met with students in office hours and by appointment to provide guidance on assignments and stimulate understanding of course material
Evaluated and provided constructive feedback on student papers, presentations, tests, and lab reports

January 2015 - March 2015

Advanced Molecular Biology Research Lab Course

Department of Biology at University of Oregon

Identified a transposon-induced mutation in a gene that conferred a photosynthetic mutant phenotype in maize
Used Integrated Genome Viewer to identify a Mu transposon insertion site in Mu-Illumina sequence data
Confirmed Mu transposon insertion site using PCR analysis

January 2014 - May 2014

Honors Research Project

Bradshaw-Holzapfel Laboratory, Institute of Ecology and Evolution at University of Oregon

Conducted independent undergraduate research on the role of larval nutrition on adult biting propensity in the pitcher plant mosquito by raising populations of varying larval nutrition and measuring the frequency of biting among adult females
Wrote and publicly defended an honors thesis

January 2012 - December 2014

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Bradshaw-Holzapfel Laboratory, Institute of Ecology and Evolution at University of Oregon

Consulted with Principal Investigators and graduate students to maintain essential operations of the laboratory
Mentored new employees on laboratory regulations and organized sessions to work on collaborative projects
Presented at several laboratory meetings each year on scientific topics of interest, such as vector-borne diseases