Adam Zeilinger Email and Phone Number

Developed innovative statistical methods to quantify and communicate severe uncertainty and support decision-making with diverse stakeholders.Interrogated and invalidated previously untested assumptions through hypothesis-driven model development and testing, leading to potentially reduced costs of failed field trials and enhancing overall project efficiency.Developed and tested Bayesian linear and non-linear models of microbial product performance and reviewed statisticalanalyses from colleagues.Lead a collaborative effort to develop standards for communicating statistical analyses and uncertainty for technical and nontechnical audiences.Assessed risks to business operations from Artificial Intelligence applications as member of the company-wide AIGovernance Board.

As co-founder of the company's Data Science efforts and working on an as-needed contract basis, I helped design the foundations for data collection, data storage, and analysis of plant disease epidemiological data. I also honed skills in translating costumer needs into statistical analyses and data products.Developed and tested spatio-temporal epidemiological models of agriculturally relevant plant diseases to provide information to growers on the risks of disease in their fields.

Enhanced outlier/anomaly detection and missing data imputation by developing and testing diverse machine learning models for high-volume multivariate financial time-series data.Broadened risk modeling by incorporating environmental frameworks, expanding the scope of uncertainties in financial risk modeling.

Led multi-disciplinary team of researchers to study the epidemiology of vector-borne plant diseases in agricultural systems using a combination of observational data, experimental data, statistical models, and theoretical epidemiological models.This work showed that grapevine varieties with novel disease-tolerance increase the risk of disease spillover to susceptible plants as a result of complex, non-linear ecological interactions.

As part of the Berkeley Initiative for Global Change Biology, I lead a project to assess the historical population dynamics of an insect vector of plant pathogens using unstructured data from 87,000 museum specimen records. For this project, I developed a spatio-temporal Bayesian state-space model to correct for biases in the data, make ecological inferences, and assess the contribution of climate change to recent disease epidemics.

As a postdoc at UC Riverside, I conducted research on the landscape ecology, behavioral ecology, and agriculturally important management of insect-vectored plant pathogens. I worked on variety of systems, including the glassy-winged sharpshooter (Homalodisca vitripennis) and Pierce's Disease (Xyllela fastidiosa) in grape vineyards and the potato psyllid (Bactericera cockerelli) and Huanglongbing disease (Candidatus Liberibacter psyllaurous) in solanaceous crops.

Research into the ecological causes of non-target pest outbreaks associated with transgenic Bt cotton. In particular, I tested the potential for release from competition with target caterpillar pests to contribute to stink bug pest outbreaks in southeastern United States.

TOPIC: Long-term and field-scale effects of transgenic Bt maize on earthworm populations in MinnesotaSUPERVISOR: David Andow

Instructed undergraduate-level instruction laboratories for two courses: Ecology (September 2006 - December 2006) and Introduction to Biology (January 2007 - May 2007). Duties included lectures on content relevant to the course materials, guiding laboratory exercises, development of exam questions, and grading of assignments and exams. As a teaching assistant in the Ecology course, I advised students on designing, executing, analyzing, and presenting independent group research projects.

TOPIC: Ecological causes of stink bug outbreaks associated with transgenic Bt cotton in Midwest BrazilSUPERVISORS: Edison Sujii and David Andow

Assisted in field and laboratory work to examine the potential adverse effects from gene flow and hybridization between genetically modified Bt cole crops (Brassica oleraceae) and wild radish, Raphanus raphanistrum, and wild mustard, Brassica rapa, in natural habitats around Santa Cruz, CA. Collected and record raw data on fitness parameters of wild radish and wild mustard with reduced herbivory from simulated Bt transgene.

TOPIC: Risk of increased invasiveness of brassicaceous weeds from introgression of a Bt transgene from cultivated relatives.SUPERVISOR: Deborah Letourneau

TOPIC: Effects of border vegetation diversity on insect species richness in radish fields. SUPERVISORS: Darryl Cole-Christensen and Stephen Gliessman

TOPIC: Seasonal changes in agricultural pollutants in the Pajaro River Valley, central California.SUPERVISORS: Marc Los Huertos and Carol Shennan; Instructed 2 laboratory sections (~40 students)