I am a population population geneticist and bioinformatician. My research strives to develop novel computational methods that enable more comprehensive and equitable genomics research.
I am a bioinformatician by training, but I received my Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Quantitative Biosciences under the guidance of Joseph Lachance. My doctoral research focused on Theoretical and Empirical Population Genetics of Admixture and Introgression, covering a broad spectrum of topics from inferring the present-day fitness of Neanderthal introgressed sequence in admixed genomes in the US to inferring the ratios of females and males from different ancestries that contributed admixed populations. I also contributed to several papers elucidating the genetic basis of prostate cancer and male-pattern baldness in men of African descent, among others.
Currently, I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Akey Lab, Princeton University, where I am developing novel computational methods for de novo genome assembly and pangenomics. I aim to develop novel genome assembly algorithms that improve the completeness and phasing of genome assemblies assembled from high-fidelity long reads only by leveraging their methylation information. I am also developing a population and statistical genetics tool suite for pangenomes. By conducting analyses in a pangenomic context, the tools suite allows us to take full advantage of accurately reconstructed structurally complex genomic regions, allowing us to survey the global distribution of genetic variation in these regions and enabling improved statistical genetics analyses.