The Road So Far
April 2026
- Served as a grant peer reviewer for the NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR), specifically for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
- Delivered a virtual guest lecture at the University of Hawai'i's Quantitative Health Sciences Seminar (646) entitled "Agentic AI in Health Data Science: Building and Evaluating Autonomous Workflows".
March 2026
- Workshop accepted for presentation at the 2026 Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) Conference in Washington DC: "Agentic AI Methods, Systems, and Software for in silico Team Science".
February 2026
- Accepted into the UCLA CTSI Office of Physician Scientist Career Development Spring 2026 R Grant Bootcamp with Dr. Steven Mittelman.
- Began as a lecturer for the UCLA Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO) Clinical Informatics Course (ME-ME100.01) for clinical resident rotations.
- Served as a faculty mentor for the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Clinical Scholars Grant Writing Workshop (February – April).
- Delivered seminar "Leveraging Automated Machine Learning to Benchmark, Deconstruct, and Compare Frailty Indices" in the Cedars-Sinai Division of Informatics Clinical Informatics Rotation Seminar Series.
January 2026
- 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.
January 2026
- Published "Leveraging automated machine learning to benchmark, deconstruct, and compare frailty indices for predicting adverse spinal surgery outcomes" in Scientific Reports.
December 2025
- Promoted to Research Scientist I (assistant professor title pending) at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
September 2025
- 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.
August 2025
- Awarded five-year K01 grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse entitled "Improving the prediction of opioid outcomes via automated EHR data processing."
March 2025
- Delivered seminar "From data to decisions: AI in preoperative risk assessment for spinal fusion" in Cedars-Sinai Division of Informatics Grand Rounds.
January 2025
- Published research on preoperative anemia as a predictor of adverse outcomes after lumbar spinal fusion in The Spine Journal.
December 2024
- Published "Distinct network patterns emerge from Cartesian and XOR epistasis models" in BioData Mining.
October 2024
- 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.
June 2024
- Accepted into UCLA CTSI K Scholars Society.
April 2024
- New PhD program in Health Artificial Intelligence launched at Cedars-Sinai, hosted by the Department of Computational Biomedicine.
February 2024
- Published "Interaction models matter: an efficient, flexible computational framework for model-specific investigation of epistasis" in BioData Mining.
January 2024
- 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.
December 2023
- Published "Cluster Analysis reveals Socioeconomic Disparities among Elective Spine Surgery Patients" in Biocomputing 2024.
June 2023
- Published research on identifying barriers to post-acute care referral using natural language processing in AMIA.
April 2023
- Published "Automated quantitative trait locus analysis (AutoQTL)" in BioData Mining and research on barriers to post-acute care referral in AMIA Annual Symposium Proceedings.
January 2023
- Made the 2022 Journal of Experimental Biology Outstanding Paper Prize shortlist for work on transcriptomic and functional genetic evidence across life cycle stages.
Fall 2022
- Accepted into Clinical Scholar's Program at Cedars-Sinai.
Summer 2022
- Published "Novel digital approaches to the assessment of problematic opioid use" in BioData Mining.
Spring 2022
- 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.
Fall 2021
- Accepted postdoctoral position at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the Department of Computational Biomedicine with Jason H. Moore, PhD.
Spring 2021
- 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.
Fall 2020
- Completed Introduction to Python course at Penn.
Spring 2020
- Completed Molecular Basis of Disease course at Penn. Attended Epistasis Discovery in Genetics and Epidemiology (EDGE) 2020 conference in Key West, Florida.
Fall 2019
- Completed Introduction to Machine Learning and Statistics for Genomics and Biomedical Informatics courses at Penn.
Summer 2019
- 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.
Spring 2019
- 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.
Fall 2018
- Successfully defended PhD dissertation on "Phenotypic, genetic, and transcriptomic decoupling of thermal hardiness across metamorphosis."
- Featured in Saint Joseph's University outcomes story.
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Summer 2018
- Published "Ovary development and cold tolerance of the invasive pest Drosophila suzukii" in Environmental Entomology.
Spring 2018
- 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.
Fall 2017
- Published first dissertation chapter as "Genetic Decoupling of Thermal Hardiness across Metamorphosis in Drosophila melanogaster" in Integrative and Comparative Biology.
Summer 2017
- 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.
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Spring 2017
- Awarded Roger C. Smith PhD Award in Entomology ($1,000).
- Traveled to University of Colorado, Denver for training in RNAseq analysis.
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Fall 2016
- 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).
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Spring 2016
- 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.
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Fall 2015
- 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.
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Summer 2015
- 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.
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Spring 2015
- Awarded Reginald H. Painter Memorial Scholarship for exceptional scholastic and research achievement.
Fall 2014
- 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.
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Summer 2014
- Successful MS Thesis Defense: "Temporal Variation at Microsatellite Loci in Wild-Caught Drosophila simulans."
Spring 2014
- Commencement: Received M.S. in Biology from Saint Joseph's University.
- 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.
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Fall 2013
- 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.
Spring 2013
- Published my first scientific paper: "Drosophila suzukii, or Spotted Wing Drosophila, Recorded in Southeastern Pennsylvania, U.S.A." in Entomological News.
Fall 2012
- 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.
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Summer 2012
- 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]."
Spring 2012
- 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.
Spring 2011
- 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.
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December 2008
- Hired at Saint Joseph's University Department of Public Safety and Security, beginning journey back to academia.
2005
- Graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a B.S. in Administration of Justice.
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