About Me

I work with "big data" (and small, and medium data!) from "next-generation sequencing" (will it ever be "current-gen?"). If you're looking for someone with my skillset then let's talk!

From "The Mitten"...

The "Michiana" Area

I hail from Edwardsburg, a small town, technically a "village" of 1,226 (2017) people. It's located only 10 minutes' drive from The University of Notre Dame's campus in South Bend, Indiana, and roughly 2 hours from Chicago.

In high school I made extra cash building and repairing computers. I also learned a bit of web development at this time, which was my first exposure to programming. I dabbled in open source software, installing Linux on my parents' computer and learned the basics of working on a command line and shell scripting.

I attended Michigan State University (Go Green!), where I majored in biochemistry and molecular biology. There, I worked in Dr. Robert Last's lab, where I received training in molecular biology and genetics.

After graduating in 2011 with my B.S. I worked for MPI Research, Inc. in Mattawan, MI. Just outside of Kalamazoo (a real place). I extracted DNA/RNA, performed qPCR assays, and ordered supplies for our lab. Due to the nature of their work and FDA's regulations (the GLPs) I also did a lot of paperwork. After two years there I decided to move on to graduate school.

... to the Southwest

Tucson and The Sonoran Desert

I came to The University of Arizona to complete a professional science masters. I took classes related to patent law, finance, and economics in addition to graduate-level molecular biology and biochemistry. For my masters thesis I worked in Dr. Rebecca Mosher's lab and designed a qPCR-based assay for measuring DNA methylation. I also was introduced to the field of bioinformatics. I completed my masters in 2015 and decided to remain at Arizona and pursue a Ph.D. and combine my life-long interest in computing with my previous experience in molecular biology.

During my Ph.D. I learned a lot and loved sharing that knowledge. My background in shell scripting and Python programming continues to be useful. I also learned to do a bang-up job in R and managed the lab's server as the de-facto sysadmin. In addition, I mentored undergraduate and high school students in the lab, and I feel I have a knack for motivating people to give their best effort.

At the end of my Ph.D. work, I started getting more interested in bioinformatics workflow development. This is important to drive the field forward; increasing our ability to do reproducible research and to work with ever larger datasets. I implemented a few of the lab's workflows, for whole-genome bisulfite sequencing and small RNA sequencing as SnakeMake workflows using Docker containers. This experience directly allowed me to start my career in biotech...

To Boston and New England!

Bahstahn

As we traveled forward through time, roughly at 1s/s (give or take), we ended up in 2020. We all know what happened in February and March. Just as I began my job search, suddenly everything shut down. Luckily, I was able, after roughly 200 applications to get a great opporunity at Seven Bridges.

I worked with a lot of great people there, and was able to bring my practical experience running bioinformatics workflows to a company focused on implementing them at scale. We developed best practices for developing workflows, and how to deploy them on the Seven Bridges Platform. I gave presentations to the National Cancer Institute and was involved in developing R Shiny Apps. I also gained experience managing large scale NGS projects at the 100 TB scale. I'm proud of the progress we made in pushing cloud computing for bioinformatics forward.

After roughly two years I decided to move on, and return (somewhat) to my roots. I accepted a position at Entrada Therapeutics, where I currently am employed. Here, I am working to build the company's bioinformatics and data science standards as well as its research computing infrastructure. However, I can also directly use my experience with workflow, data visualization, and downstream analysis of NGS data to aid in their mission to develop therapies for rare diseases. To accomplish this, I'm working to develop biomarkers using NGS experiments as their first full-time bioinformatics hire.

When I'm Not Working

Aside from biology, data science, and general computer nerdery I have a few hobbies. I'm an avid guitarist (mostly Jacksons, though my gear acquisition syndrome is equal opportunity), and I try to see one of my favorite prog-rock/metal bands every chance I get. Related to that, I've dabbled in recording and music production. You can usually find me relaxing with my wife and our cat, Hank (named for Hank Schrader from Breaking Bad). When I'm unwinding with friends you can find me wherever fine craft beers are served (no thank you on the IPAs though)!