Group leader studying the tumor microenvironment, tumor heterogeneity, immune cell engagers, and co-lead of data science efforts in target identification.

Group leader studying the tumor microenvironment and co-lead of data science efforts in target identification.

Group leader studying the tumor microenvironment and co-lead of the immuno-oncology portfolio of collaborations.

Preclinical and clinical applications in immuno-oncology, biologics, intercellular communication, the tumor microenvironment, single-cell RNA-seq, bulk RNA-seq, syngeneic tumors, patient-derived xenografts, drug resistance, combination therapy, tumor heterogeneity, and biomarker discovery.

• Advised by Edison Liu (President and CEO of The Jackson Laboratory).• Studied how structural variations in cancer genomes coordinately affect the expression of functional blocks of genes on chromosomes, and how those blocks impact cancer evolution and therapy response.• Studied the role of the epithelial-mesenchymal transition in therapy response in vitro and in vivo. • Collaborated with physicians, pathologists, and bioinformaticians at Univ. of California-Davis to predict bladder cancer therapy response using patient-derived tumor xenografts.• Analyzed tumors using single-cell RNA-seq data to study tumor heterogeneity, immune vs. stromal gene signatures, and autocrine vs. paracrine signaling.

• Advised by Douglas Lauffenburger. • Computational efforts: Studied methods for quantifying relationships between measured signals (using Bayesian network inference, correlation, and mutual information-based methods), and between signals and cellular phenotypes (using linear regression, partial least squares regression, and feature selection methods).• Biological efforts: Studied signaling between receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), signaling and cell migration downstream of RTKs in epithelial versus mesenchymal cell states, and comparative signaling across RTKs.• Collaborated in multi-disciplinary teams with professors at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, the University of Washington-Seattle, and MIT.• PhD Thesis: "Multivariate studies of receptor tyrosine kinase function in cancer" (link below)

NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes Fellow. Analyzed whole-genome copy number variation in cancer. Advised by Edison Liu (Founding Executive Director of the Genome Institute of Singapore).

• Spent portion of my time during Ph.D. thesis on industry-academia collaboration involving Pfizer, Entelos, MIT, Caltech, UC-Santa Barbara, and the UMass Medical School.• Goal was to combine modeling and experimentation at transcriptional, protein, and whole-body levels in multidisciplinary diabetes drug discovery program.• Leadership role as primary MIT contact among three MIT labs for collaboration-wide modeling team.

Explored the viability of a new market for computational genomics-based startup company.

Histological and biochemical studies of in vivo immune cell function in response to infection in mice. 24 students selected for program among 487 applicants.

Compared methods for in vitro T cell stimulation. 8 students selected for program among 176 applicants.

Developed chemical assays to the standards of the United States Pharmacopeia.