Research Interests
- Algorithm design and combinatorial optimization
- Computational Biology and Bioinformatics: Genomics; Metagenomics; Sequence Assembly; Phylogenetics; Clustering and Ordination; Functional Genomics; Homology Detection; Biomarker Discovery; Machine Learning
- Microbiome research: Host-microbiome associations and mechanisms in the context of health and disease; Microbial diversity in different environments including water and air; Analysis and integration of ‘-omics’ data
Other Experience
- Human Longevity Inc. (2014-2016): Senior Director of Bioinformatics / Microbiome Lead
- Craig Venter Institute (2003-2016)
- Professor of Informatics (2014-2016)
- Director of Informatics, San Diego (2009-2011)
- Associate Professor of Informatics (2009-2013)
- Senior Computational Scientist (2003-2008)
- Celera Genomics (2000-2003): Computer Scientist
- University of Southern California (1998-2000): Research Associate
- DIMACS, Rutgers University (1997-1998): Postdoctoral Fellow
- Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs (1997-1998): Consultant
Professional Activities
- On editorial board of Microbiome journal
- Ad-hoc reviewer for various journals including Nature, Nucleic Acids Research, Bioinformatics, and PLOS
- Served on several NSF and NIH Review Panels
- Program Committee member for several recent conferences including WABI 2019, BIOKDD 2019, AlCoB 2018, AlCoB 2017, and ICCABS 2017.
Honors & Awards
- Over 30,000 citations of research articles (source Google Scholar)
- Several publications recommended by Faculty of 1000
- GRASP algorithm featured in Biotechniques (2015)
- Postdoctoral Fellowship from NSF funded Program in Mathematics and Molecular Biology (1998-2000)
- Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from NSF funded DIMACS (1997-1998)
- Graduate Fellowships from PMMB (1995-1997), IRCS (1995-1997), UPenn (1993-1995)
- Dean’s Fellowship (1992-1993)
