About

I’m a Senior Computational Biologist and software engineer at the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon.

I received a PhD in bioinformatics and computational biology from OHSU’s Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology (DMICE) in 2022, where I was an NLM/NIEHS Pre-doctoral Fellow. The primary focus of my dissertation was the development of quantum algorithms targeting biomedical research and healthcare applications and, in particular, the development of proof-of-principle quantum machine learning algorithms yielding quantum learning advantages in both sample complexity and generalization error – key figures of merit for learning systems.

My PhD work was a significant departure from the focus of my MSc, which centered on the computational modeling of platform error for genomic sequencing platforms. The central thrust of that work was an exploration of error correction algorithms for sequencing platforms and their integration into a gold-standard genomic sequencing pipeline wihe key aim of improvin the pipeline’s sensitivity and specificity for detecting low frequency variants, a class of mutations common in cancers. The ability to confidently detect low frequency variants is useful for monitoring minimal residual disease (MRD) – a crucial clinical endpoint in the treatment of a variety of cancers, including hematological malignancies.

Prior to my graduate education, I received a BA from Whittier College in 2011. There, I majored in Psychology with a concentration in Neuropyschology and a minor in American Political Science. My undergraduate thesis centered on the neurobiological and perceptual basis of emotions as experienced from and perceived within the structure of music. Following graduation, I spent time as a research assistant in a neuropharmacology lab at UC Irvine exploring the world of wetlab neurobiology.

Before pursuing my graduate education, I worked at a creative agency in Newport Beach, California. There, I built mahy interactive data visualizations, web games, dashboards, and the like. You can check out some of that work (and other random software projects, including ones related to my research) on my GitHub.

When not building software and engaging in research, I spend a lot of time climbing, hiking, foraging, inventing recipes, brewing hooch, growing bonsais, making music, and snapping photos of the gorgeous nature out here in the Pacific North West. I also on occasion write generative art algorithms – hence the abstract image on this page.

If you’d like to get in touch, I’m best reached via email.