I'm a postdoctoral researcher in Sean Eddy's lab at HHMI Janelia Farm Research Campus in Northern Virginia. I work on methods in computational biology, with an emphasis on sequence analysis; the primary focus of my postdoctoral work has been on (1) algorithms for accelerating and increasing the power of homology search, (2) implementation of those methods in DNA homology search software called nhmmer, and (3) application of nhmmer to the search for DNA cis-regulatory elements and the genomic remnants of transposable elements. I completed my Ph.D. in 2009 at the University of Arizona, focused on algorithms for efficient construction of accurate multiple sequence alignments and large-scale phylogenies, co-advised by John Kececioglu (Computer Science) and Mike Sanderson (Evolutionary Biology) at the University of Arizona.
My continued research largely focuses on extending my current work in homology search and on related biology-motivated topics, especially those involving transposable elements and regulatory elements. I am also interested in the broader fields of algorithm design and genomics, and will gladly collaborate on other interesting problems.