I am Professor in the Vaccine and Infectious Disease and Clinical Research Divisions at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and an Associate Professor at the University of Washington in the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine. I love identifying problems in the clinic and the infectious diseases literature that can be addressed with mathematical models. I feel privileged to collaborate with such a driven and gifted group of multi-disciplinary scientists and clinicians at Fred Hutchinson and the University of Washington.
I am a senior staff scientist with the Schiffer group in the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division. My work focuses on developing theories to address questions related to virus and immune system dynamics, and response to therapeutic strategies especially in the context of HIV-1 infection. The theoretical approaches involve the use of mathematical models and statistical tools to analyze and interpret kinetics patterns observed in data. I recently finished as a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Labs working with Alan Perelson and Ruy Ribeiro doing mathematical modeling to understand the with-in host dynamics of HIV-1 during different therapy approaches. I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Delaware working with Ryan Zurakowski.
I joined the group in the summer of 2015 as an Infectious Disease Fellow. I studied Math and Latin at Marshall University in West Virginia as an undergraduate, Math as a master's student, and Medicine at Marshall's School of Medicine. After completing my residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Wisconsin (UW), I came to the Pacific Northwest as an Infectious Disease Fellow at the University of Washington (UW). Staying on at the UW and Fred Hutch as a KL2 scholar in the Institute for Translational Health Sciences (ITHS), I am currently working on projects that include intra-host models of CMV and HIV latency.
I am an Associate in Vaccine and Infectious Diseases with the Schiffer group working on models of HIV. I received a PhD in physics from Dartmouth College, but was always inspired by biological problems. The complex dynamics at work in viral infection drew me to theoretical immunology originally, and I now integrate my background from physical modeling into providing new insights into cellular processes, linking the mathematics of ecology and immunology, and ultimately, helping to cure HIV.
I have worked for several years in the Schiffer group developing compartmental and agent-based spatial models for various infectious diseases with a primary focus on HSV. Additionally, I have worked with several other groups at Fred Hutchinson providing simulation expertise and other types of computing support. Prior to working at Fred Hutchinson, I was a senior software engineer with F5 Networks and Boeing as well as serving as a high school teacher with the Peace Corps in Kenya, East Africa. I have a degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford and graduate degrees in Computer Science and Medical Engineering from UW.
I am a Data Science major and Biology minor undergraduate student from UC San Diego, and I worked with Schiffer Group as a summer intern. My project includes developing mathematical models to project SARS-CoV-2 viral loads and antibody level over time, and using the models to explore the interplay between SARS-CoV-2 viral replication and antibody response. I am always interested in learning how to get useful information from data and use it to solve biomedical related problems.
I am an intern for the Schiffer group, and currently a senior studying biophysics and applied mathematics at the University of Washington. My focuse lies in HV dynamics and the pharmacokinetics of broadly neutralizing antibodies, learning how to apply mathematical models to dynamical systems in order to compare different antibodies. I hope to pursue a Ph.D. and continue to use models to research infectious diseases.