I will be getting my M.D. from Harvard Medical School in June 2009 and then beginning a Residency in Clinical Pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
In June 2007, I defended my Ph.D. thesis, Computational Discovery of Gene Modules, Regulatory Networks and Expression Programs.
My thesis committee consisted of Professors David Gifford (MIT EECS, supervisor), Tommi Jaakkola (MIT EECS), and Richard Young (MIT Biology and the Whitehead Institute).
I completed my work in a joint program between Harvard and MIT, the Division of Health Sciences
and Technology (HST). In this program, students must qualify in a collaborating
engineering or science department at MIT or Harvard as well as complete core courses at Harvard Medical School.
My collaborating department at MIT was Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Broadly, my research involves applying computational/mathematical approaches to problems of biological/medical importance.
I'm particularly interested in developing computational methods for inference of genetic regulatory networks from
high-throughput biological data.
My previous education includes a masters' degree from MIT in EECS, a masters' degree in Infectious Diseases from UC Berkeley and a bachelors' degree in Mathematics (summa cum laude), also
from UC Berkeley. As an undergraduate, I worked with Dr. Hans Bremermann on
mathematical models of the immune system. As a graduate student, I worked with
Dr. Brian Barsky on modeling and visualizing the human cornea.
I returned to the academic world in Fall 2000 to complete my Ph.D, after working
in industry for many years. My most recent position in industry was as Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (1999-2000)
of IS?TV, an entertainment oriented Internet startup. There, I developed a comprehensive
business and technology plan for the company. I also directed development of a prototype
and spent weeks on the road giving dog-and-pony shows to venture capitalists. During this year, I also
attended Stanford Business School and was an active trader/investor, with a focus on Internet and biotech equities.
Prior to IS?TV, I was Senior Vice President of L-Squared Entertainment (1995-1999),
a diversified entertainment company with interests in feature film, large format film (IMAX),
Internet/online, and location based entertainment (LBE). There I led corporate research
and development, and managed creative/technical staff for clients such as NBC, CAA,
Intel and IMAX. I was also heavily involved in corporate strategy and financial analysis.
Some of my more interesting work at L-Squared includes Action!, an
artificial intelligence based system for interactive dramas.
Prior to L-Squared, I was CEO/co-founder of Infinite Interactions, a company focused on
real-time 3D graphics for entertainment applications. This company worked on several
projects, including the feature film, Virtuosity (a Paramount Pictures production,
starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe). Infinite Interactions was acquired by L-Squared in 1995.
Prior to this, I held various positions, including as a researcher at Metabolex (a biotech
company), and as a computer consultant. I also co-founded an early online service as a
teenager, and ran this business for five years.