Research Statement.

Designing novel computational algorithms and tools to improve cancer patients’ health by triggering the genetic, genomic, epigenomic, and environmental factors and connecting the molecular dots and genetic differences in the population to develop the most effective, less toxic, and patient-specific therapies.

Skills

First-author publication track-record

Expertise in the genetic and biological principles to guide the analyses and interpretation of New Generation Sequencing data

Expertise in working with genotyping and gene sequence data including quality control and association analyses with clinical phenotypes

Expertise in bioinformatics, statistical genetics, biostatistics, and computational biology

Expertise in supervised and unsupervised machine learning methods

Experience in network science methods

Programming skills in R, MATLAB, Python, Shell, and Bash scripts, expertise with documentation, version control, and code releases

Experience in Big data platforms like Hadoop, Hive, Impala, SparklyR

Expertise in Parallel Computing and Linux-based High-Performance Computing

Extensive training in mathematics and statistics including demonstrated teaching experience

Education

  • Marquette University, Milwaukee: Ph.D. in Computational Sciences (Sep 2015-May 2021)

  • University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee: MS in Mathematics (2013-2015)

  • Visva Bharati University, India: Bachelor and Master of Science in Physics (B.Sc. + M.Sc.)

Positions held


2021- Present

Feinberg School of Medicine, Department of Genetic Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL

Postdoctoral Research Scientist


2019 - 2021

Bioinformatics Lab, Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI

Research Assistant


2018 - 2019

Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI

Teaching Assistant

Courses Taught: Modern Elementary Statistics, Calculus I, II, III


2017 - 2018

Northwestern Mutual, Milwaukee, WI

Data Scientist (Intern)


2015 - 2016

Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI and Milwaukee Institute (High Performance Computing)

Teaching Assistant; Data Scientist (Intern)

Courses Taught: Calculus I, II


2013 - 2015

Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, WI

Teaching Assistant

Courses Taught: Undergraduate Algebra and Calculus

Awards

Computational Sciences Summer Research Fellowship Award, Marquette University, 2020 $5,000

Fellowship award for attending ISMB 2020, VIRTUAL $150

NSF travel fellowship for International Workshop on Computational Network Biology:

Modeling, Analysis, and Control (CNB-MAC 2019) $400

NSF travel fellowship for Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology,

and Health Informatics (ACM BCB 2019) $1,000

Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute Research Fellowship Award, Summer 2019 $3,500

Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute Research Fellowship Award, Spring 2019 $5,000

NSF Travel fellowship for GLBIO (Great Lakes Bioinformatics Consortium), 2019 $250

Computational Sciences Summer Research Fellowship Award, Marquette University, 2018 $5,000

Computational Sciences Summer Research Fellowship Award, Marquette University, 2016 $5,000

University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Chancellors Fellowship, 2013: Top MS student award $2,000

University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Chancellors Fellowship, 2014: Top MS student award $2,000

First Author Publications


Posters and talks


  • Two poster presentations at ISMB (Intelligent Systems For Molecular Biology), Virtual Conference (2020) Title 1: CTDPathSim: Cell line-tumor deconvoluted pathway-based similarity in the context of precision medicine in cancer. Title 2: miRDriver: A computational tool to infer copy number derived miRNA-gene networks in cancer.

  • Poster presentation at Forward Thinking Colloquium, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI (2019) Title: PDDRNet_MH: Patient-Derived Drug Response using Multiplex Heterogeneous Networks.

  • Poster presentation at GLBIO (Great Lakes Bioinformatics Consortium) (2019) Title: miRDriver: A computational tool to infer copy number derived miRNA-gene networks in cancer.

  • Colloquium talk in Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI (2019) Title: miRNAdriver: Copy Number Derived microRNA-Gene Interactions in Cancer.

  • Poster presentation at ECCB (European Conference on Computational Biology) (2018) Title: Copy Number-Derived microRNA-Gene Interactions in Cancer.

  • Poster presentation at Forward Thinking Colloquium, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI (2017) Title: An integrated framework for identifying context-specific gene-drug interactions among cancer patients: An advanced step towards personalized medicine.

  • Talk in Northwestern Mutual Insurance Company, Milwaukee, WI (2017) Title: DART(Digital Analytics and Research Team) Cloudera Hadoop Implementation: Proof of concept.

  • Talk in Northwestern Mutual Insurance Company, Milwaukee, WI (2017) Title: Measuring client effort through Digital analytics.

  • Presentation in Statistical Seminar, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI (2016) Title: Introduction of spatial correlation in healthcare insurance data.

  • Presentation in Applied Mathematics Talk, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI (2015) Title: Principal Component Analysis.

  • Presentation in Applied & Computational Mathematics Seminar, UW-Milwaukee, WI (2015) Title: A study on the blood-tissue exchange model and its algorithm.

Additional Activities


  • Mentoring undergraduate research assistants in bioinformatics, data science, and computer science

  • Sub Reviewer of ISMB/ECCB (Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology/ European Conference on Computational Biology)

  • 2019 submissions Sub Reviewer of GIW (International Conference on Genome Informatics) 2018 submissions

  • Sub Reviewer of BCB (Bioinformatics and Computational Biology) 2018 submissions

  • Served as an active member of ACM-Women chapter at Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI