Welcome!

I am an assistant professor in the Manning College of Information & Computer Sciences (CICS) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

I direct the Sequence Analysis and Genomics (SAGE) lab at CICS, where we build and apply computational methods to understand genetic variation. We have a particular emphasis on antibiotic resistant bacteria, which pose a major and evolving public health threat.

Using machine learning applied to genomic sequences, combined with a deep understanding of molecular biology and bacterial genomics, SAGE aims to build models that can both accurately predict antibiotic resistance from genome sequences, and also provide interpretable outputs about the genetic basis of resistance. Our long-term goal is for these models to detect newly evolved resistance, and even predict the potential of certain pathogens to evolve resistance. We are also striving to convert our understanding of resistance genomics into an ability to discover new antibiotics that will target essential cellular processes.

I did my postdoctoral work in Maha Farhat’s lab at the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School, where I use computational genomics and machine learning to understand the evolution of antibiotic resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Previously, I developed and applied computational methods to study protein structure and interaction in Debora Marks’ lab at Harvard Medical School, where I completed my PhD in 2019. Before that, I earned a BS in molecular biology and bioinformatics at the University of Connecticut.