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I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Before my current position, I was a post-doctoral researcher (advised by Jacob Bien), with a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University (advised by Max G'Sell and Ryan Tibshirani) and a B.S. from the University of Michigan.
I develop statistical tools for large complex data in real-world scientific applications.
My current research centers around statistically analyzing the ocean's microbial ecology using high-resolution biological and remote sensing datasets (e.g., flow cytometry, metagenomics, DNA metabarcoding, and spatial proteomics). My research often entails looking at very small things – like single-cell resolution flow cytometry data – to answer very broad questions about ocean ecology, like:
- What type of microbe lives where, and why?
- How do you effectively compare spatiotemporal maps of measurements made in the ocean?
- Which are coherent spatial regions (i.e., biomes/provinces) in the ocean according to biology?
- How are marine microbes distributed where data has not been collected yet?
My work is supported by the Simons Foundation and by the National Science foundation (CAIG AI+Geosciences).
I'm also an early-career representative on the Section U steering committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
I'm fond of the following bit from The Universe and the Teacup by K.C. Cole:
"So the improved Newtonion Universe must cease and grow cold," says Thomasina's tutor Septimus in Stoppard's Arcadia, suddenly realizing the import of his student's mathematical discovery that disorder is the inevitable direction of things. "Dear me." "Yes," Thomasina replies, "we must hurry if we are going to dance."