The Road So Far
Co-developed and began co-teaching "Artificial Intelligence" (HAI 100B) as part of Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University's PhD program in Health Artificial Intelligence.
Published "Leveraging automated machine learning to benchmark, deconstruct, and compare frailty indices for predicting adverse spinal surgery outcomes" in Scientific Reports.
Promoted to Research Scientist I (assistant professor title pending) at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Delivered seminar "StarBASE-GP: biologically-guided automated machine learning for genotype-to-phenotype association analysis" in the Cedars-Sinai Department of Computational Biomedicine Grand Rounds.
Awarded five-year K01 grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse entitled "Improving the prediction of opioid outcomes via automated EHR data processing."
Delivered seminar "From data to decisions: AI in preoperative risk assessment for spinal fusion" in Cedars-Sinai Division of Informatics Grand Rounds.
Published research on preoperative anemia as a predictor of adverse outcomes after lumbar spinal fusion in The Spine Journal.
Published "Distinct network patterns emerge from Cartesian and XOR epistasis models" in BioData Mining.
Published three articles: "PAGER: A novel genotype encoding strategy," "Realizing the potential of social determinants data in EHR systems," and "Assessing the limitations of relief-based algorithms" across various journals. Delivered seminar on ChatGPT at Health Language Processing Annual Symposium 2024.
Accepted into UCLA CTSI K Scholars Society.
New PhD program in Health Artificial Intelligence launched at Cedars-Sinai, hosted by the Department of Computational Biomedicine.
Published "Interaction models matter: an efficient, flexible computational framework for model-specific investigation of epistasis" in BioData Mining.
Promoted to Project Scientist in the Department of Computational Biomedicine at Cedars-Sinai.
Published work on inferring opioid use disorder severity from clinical notes in JMIR Mental Health.
Attended Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing on Hawaii's Big Island, presenting research on socioeconomic disparities among spine surgery patients.
Published "Cluster Analysis reveals Socioeconomic Disparities among Elective Spine Surgery Patients" in Biocomputing 2024.
Published research on identifying barriers to post-acute care referral using natural language processing in AMIA.
Published "Automated quantitative trait locus analysis (AutoQTL)" in BioData Mining and research on barriers to post-acute care referral in AMIA Annual Symposium Proceedings.
Made the 2022 Journal of Experimental Biology Outstanding Paper Prize shortlist for work on transcriptomic and functional genetic evidence across life cycle stages.
Accepted into Clinical Scholar's Program at Cedars-Sinai.
Published "Novel digital approaches to the assessment of problematic opioid use" in BioData Mining.
Published "Transcriptomic and functional genetic evidence for distinct ecophysiological responses" in Journal of Experimental Biology. Published research on classifying opioid use disorder characteristics from hospital discharge summaries in Frontiers in Public Health. Accepted into Grant Writing Program at Cedars-Sinai and began position there.
Accepted postdoctoral position at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the Department of Computational Biomedicine with Jason H. Moore, PhD.
Published "The phenomics and genetics of addictive and affective comorbidity in opioid use disorder" in Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Completed Responsible Conduct of Research program at Penn.
Completed Introduction to Python course at Penn.
Completed Molecular Basis of Disease course at Penn. Attended Epistasis Discovery in Genetics and Epidemiology (EDGE) 2020 conference in Key West, Florida.
Completed Introduction to Machine Learning and Statistics for Genomics and Biomedical Informatics courses at Penn.
Completed multiple Python-related courses on Coursera covering programming fundamentals, data structures, web data access, databases, and data visualization. Recorded podcast with Dr. James Burgon discussing recent publication on stage-specific genotype-by-environment interactions in Drosophila melanogaster.
Accepted postdoctoral position with Jason Moore at University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine investigating genomics of Opioid Use Disorder. Published "Stage-specific genotype-by-environment interactions for cold and heat hardiness in Drosophila melanogaster" in Heredity.
Successfully defended PhD dissertation on "Phenotypic, genetic, and transcriptomic decoupling of thermal hardiness across metamorphosis."
Featured in Saint Joseph's University outcomes story.
Published "Ovary development and cold tolerance of the invasive pest Drosophila suzukii" in Environmental Entomology.
Presented poster on "Phenotypic and Genetic Decoupling of Thermal Hardiness" at the 59th Annual Drosophila Research Conference in Philadelphia. Research on Drosophila suzukii accepted for publication.
Published first dissertation chapter as "Genetic Decoupling of Thermal Hardiness across Metamorphosis in Drosophila melanogaster" in Integrative and Comparative Biology.
Presented oral talk on mechanisms of cold hardiness at the 7th International Symposium of Environmental Physiology of Ectotherms and Plants (ISEPEP7) in Estonia.
Traveled to Oulanka National Park, Finland to capture native drosophilids with collaborators.
Awarded Roger C. Smith PhD Award in Entomology ($1,000).
Traveled to University of Colorado, Denver for training in RNAseq analysis.
Passed preliminary exams and received PhD candidacy status.
Taught undergraduate course "Insects and People" with John Ruberson, PhD.
Awarded Don C. Warren Genetic Scholarship ($1,000).
Attended Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Conference in Portland and presented oral work on physiology across metamorphosis.
Competed in KSU Department of Entomology's 3 Minute Thesis Competition.
Presented "Decoupling of physiology across metamorphosis" during KSU Department of Entomology seminar and passed thesis proposal.
Started R user group at KSU.
Presented poster on "Evolution of complex life cycles" at 13th Annual Ecological Genomics Symposium.
Presented work on ontogenetic constraint in thermal physiology at Ecological Genomics Summer Research Forum.
Presented research on temporal variation in Drosophila simulans at Arthropod Genomics Research Symposium.
Received certificates for qPCR protocol and RNA sequencing training.
Awarded Reginald H. Painter Memorial Scholarship for exceptional scholastic and research achievement.
Presented a poster entitled "Temporal Variation at Microsatellite Loci in Wild-Caught Drosophila simulans" at the 12th Annual Ecological Genomics Summer Research Forum.
Accepted a GRA position at Kansas State University, Department of Entomology to pursue PhD in entomology.
Recipient of the Timothy R. Donoghue Graduate Scholarship.
Successful MS Thesis Defense: "Temporal Variation at Microsatellite Loci in Wild-Caught Drosophila simulans."
Commencement: Received M.S. in Biology from Saint Joseph's University.
- Recipient of the Biology Graduate Student Award
- Inducted into Alpha Epsilon Lambda - The Graduate Students Honor Society
Appeared in SJU Intellect Magazine, Spring 2014: Dangerous Invaders: Researchers Embark on Study of Asian Fruit Fly.
Appeared in MAJR Magazine: How My Major is Making a Difference - an article concerning community outreach and the GeoKids LINKS program.
Presented a poster entitled "Temporal Variation at Microsatellite Loci in Wild-Caught Drosophila simulans" at the Sigma Xi Research Symposium at Saint Joseph's University.
Appeared in "Glow Better: Students and Faculty Collaborate to Study Fruit Pest" - an article concerning a collaborative, multi-faceted research effort at Saint Joseph's University to study Drosophila suzukii, a new invasive fruit fly pest in Pennsylvania.
Published "An Efficient, Practical, and Reliable Drosophila Trap" in Drosophila Information Service.
Published my first scientific paper: "Drosophila suzukii, or Spotted Wing Drosophila, Recorded in Southeastern Pennsylvania, U.S.A." in Entomological News.
Accepted as graduate student (M.S.) in the Department of Biology at Saint Joseph's University.
Started position as a GeoKids LINKS GK-12 Fellow.
Attended the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB)'s Plant Biology meeting in Austin, Texas from July 20th to July 24th and collaboratively produced and presented a poster entitled "Genomic regions responsible for altered reproductive characteristics of Arabidopsis thaliana grown at elevated [CO2]."
Presented a poster entitled "Drosophila Biodiversity on the Campus of Saint Joseph's University" at the Sigma Xi Research Symposium at Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia.
Presented a poster entitled "Computational Study of Flowering Time Genetics with QTL Cartographer" at the Sigma Xi Research Symposium at Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia.
Appeared in "Look Who's Going Back to School" in SJU Magazine.
- An article in SJU Magazine's Fall 2010 edition highlighting returning students and their stories. (See page 16)
Hired at Saint Joseph's University Department of Public Safety and Security, beginning journey back to academia.
Graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a B.S. in Administration of Justice.