PhD Students

I am a PhD student in the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology program. I am interested in mathematical models and computational techniques to represent and gain insight on biological applications. I am working with Dr. Andrea Arnold to mathematically model inflammatory components and treatment strategies post ischemic stroke. I also enjoy running, hiking, and traveling.

Alicia completed her BS/MS at WPI in 2019 and continued to a PhD. She is focusing on personal learning environments that are influenced by neuroimaging data collected with a functional near-infrared spectroscopy device. She is most interested in language learning but has done work on mind-wandering and cognitive control while learning.

Ming’s doctoral research focuses on data integration of next-generation sequencing (NGS) and its application to complex human diseases, supervised by Professor Zheyang Wu. With both statistics and computing backgrounds, her research interest lies to applying the power of statistics methods and efficient algorithms to detect novel genetic factors for diseases. Prior to joining in WPI BCB program in 2019, she worked for Brigham and Women’s Hospital as a bioinformatician.

I am a Ph.D. student in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology program and my advisor is Dmitry Korkin. My research focus is on modeling complex systems. My dissertation work is on modeling protein physical interactome for various biological systems. My research also involves uncovering mechanisms of complex diseases including depression and cancer with different modalities of data by machine learning. 

I am a PhD student in the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, advised by Dmitry Korkin. My research work will be focused on alternative splicing analysis. Prior to starting at WPI, I earned my BS from Rochester Institute of Technology, where I did research on positional protein motifs. After RIT, I worked at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, focused on the analysis of mouse intestinal epigenetic and transcriptomic data.  

PhD Candidate in BCB and the first cohort of the WPI/UMMS Joint Program. She is pursuing her thesis research in the Grunwald Lab at the RTI at UMMS and collaborates with the Korkin Lab. Her research interests include mitochondrial disease, host-pathogen relations, and the biological bases of psychiatric disorders. Prior to coming to starting her PhD, she worked for the State Epidemiologist on analyzing diagnostic criteria for Lyme Disease surveillance. She earned her MPH, concentrating in epi/biostats, and studied the fidelity of MIIS data for tracking childhood immunization rates. Other ...

I am a Ph.D. student in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology under the joint mentorship of Scarlet Shell and Dmitry Korkin. My research focuses on addressing questions relating to gene regulation and mRNA metabolism in mycobacteria with focus on refined understanding of mRNA degradation mechanism.

Jocelyn is a BCB PhD Candidate in the Grunwald Lab at the RTI at UMMS as part of the WPI/UMMS Joint Program. Her focus is NPCs, mitochondria and intergenomic communication. She also studies lab-based Lyme Disease surveillance methods for the MDPH. She earned an MPH concentrated in epi/biostats, studying MIIS data fidelity for childhood immunization rates. As an undergrad, she studied math and philosophy at BC. Other adventures in academia have included teaching HS math and science, as well as working in educational publishing. To maintain a sense of her place within society, she works as an ...

Sarah is driven to contribute to the expansion of human potential. Starting at the University of Florida, she leveraged systems biology to further comparative metabolomics understanding in lilies. She then worked at NorthShore University Healthsystem and studied Schizophrenia using CRISPR tools in stem cells and neurons. She is currently studying non-models yeast for climate change solutions using bioinformatics and chemical engineering. Sarah's curiosity has led her to try a variety of activities, including joining her collegiate crew team, trying new foods, and becoming SCUBA certified. As a ...

Junpei Xiao received a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Arizona State University with experience on utilizing microbes to produce renewable industrial grade bio-based products. He then received a Master of Science in Bioinformatics from Boston University with experience on scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq analysis. He is now pursuing his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology under the mentorship of Scarlet Shell. His research focuses on investigating the mechanism of resistance for certain drugs of mycobacteria. Beyond the lab, Junpei enjoys fishing.

I am a PhD student in the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Program. I am doing joint research under Professor Vidali and Professor Min on developing mathematical models for plant cell growth and deformation. Previously at Northeastern University, I have done research in protein active site predictions and had internships at Harvard Medical School and Seres Therapeutics in Cambridge.

I joined the PhD program of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology of WPI in 2019. I am working with Dr. Korkin focus on ligand binding computation, including the alternative splicing affect and the human population mutations. Before I came into WPI, I earned my Bachelor degree from Zhejiang University in Biomedical Sciences, studying the cancer genetics in stomach and colon cancer. I obtained my M.S. degree from Duke University of Biomedical Engineering, I did research in gut microbiome and gene expression profile of cancer metastasis.