Genomic Data Modeling
We have moved to the Seattle Children’s Research Institute as of May 1st, 2023 where we are a part of the University of Washington School of Medicine, and the department of Genome Sciences. We are hiring at all levels.
We are interested in the design of probabilistic machine learning methods and statistical models that incorporate known biochemical principles to facilitate decision-making from limited data and to allow for asking smarter questions. We have a major focus on quantitative analysis of regulatory variation in the human genome from large scale functional genomics data and its application to rare diseases and precision medicine.
Pejman Mohammadi
PI, Associate Professor
Pejman is a computational biologist with a background primarily in statistical machine learning and Bayesian data modeling. His current research interests span over practical and theoretical issues that arise in genomics and personalized medicine, focusing on quantitative analysis of regulatory variation in the genome and its application to rare diseases.
Pejman jointed UW as an Associate Professor in 2023. Prior to that he was at Scripps Research in San Diego as a tenure track Assistant Professor in 2018, later as an Associate Professor from 2021. He holds a Ph.D. in Computational Biology from ETH Zurich and carried out postdoctoral work at the NY Genome Center and Columbia University from 2015 to 2017.
Daniel Munro
Staff Scientist
Daniel joined the lab in 2020 and has a joint position in the Palmer Lab at UC San Diego. He is developing methods to identify regulatory variation in outbred rats with applications in psychiatry, as well as tools for extracting biological features from RNA-Seq. He did his PhD in Quantitative and Computational Biology at Princeton University with Mona Singh. Personal website
Robert Vogel
Staff Scientist
Robert joined the lab as a postdoc in 2021. He is interested in developing and applying computational methods for uncovering novel biological insights from genomic and transcriptomic data. Prior to joining the lab, he worked on developing and applying nonlinear dynamic and statistical models for understanding cellular response variability observed in single-cell measurements and in binary classification tasks. He holds a Ph.D. in Physiology, Biophysics, and Systems Biology from the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences and completed postdoctoral work at IBM Research and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Yan Hao
Staff Scientist
Yan joined the lab as a staff scientist in 2024, focusing on the application of statistical machine learning models to analyze single-cell spatial transcriptomics and genomics within clinical trial datasets. Prior to this role, she concentrated her research on functional genomics, aiming to discover new drug targets for neurological disorders, immune diseases, and cancers. Yan holds a PhD in Cellular Biology from the University of Michigan and a Master's degree in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. Her postdoctoral work was conducted at AbbVie.
Eric Rynes
Staff Scientist
Eric joined the lab in 2024, and has a joint position in Mara Pavel-Dinu’s lab. He has extensive prior experience performing direct and applied analyses of DNase-seq data for the international ENCODE project. Before that, he performed software and method development in the Kuhner-Felsenstein theoretical population genetics lab in the University of Washington’s Department of Genome Sciences. From 2021-2024, he created custom software for analysis and quality control of biopharmaceutical product development as a senior data scientist at Just-Evotec Biologics, six blocks north of the PejLab. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Statistical Genetics and an M.Mus. degree in violin performance from the University of Washington, an M.S. in physics from the University of Illinois, and a B.A. with honors in physics from the University of Chicago. Details of Eric’s upcoming and past performances can be found here.
Mehdi Esmaeili-Fard
Postdoc
Mehdi joined the lab in 2023. He is a computational and quantitative biologist and applies statistical methods to detect genomic variations underlying disease/traits. Mehdi also has wide experience in whole-genome prediction using statistical approaches. At the PejLab, Mehdi's work focuses on applying bioinformatics and computational methods to conduct GWAS and eQTL/single-cell eQTL analyses to identify genes and pathways in the cochlear-vestibular system related to balance in older adults. Mehdi is interested in multi-omics analyses using different layers of genomic data that can lead to a better connection between genotype and phenotype and a better systematic understanding of the information flow across different omics layers. "By the way, our ultimate goal is improving human health :)".
Mehreen Mughal
Postdoc
Mehreen joined the group in 2024. She is a population geneticist interested in understanding human adaptation and evolutionary history. She is working on developing methods to understand the relationship between ancestry and gene expression. Her previous work involved developing statistical methods for analyzing human genome data, particularly in identifying and differentiation among different evolutionary forces including positive selection and adaptive introgression. She has a PhD in Bioinformatics and Genomics from Penn State and did her postdoc at Cold Spring Harbor Labs.
Katharine Chen
Postdoc
Katharine joined the lab as a postdoc in 2024. She is interested in applying and developing computational models to better understand the effects of eQTLs on their target genes using GTEx and other transcriptomic datasets. She holds a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology with a specialization in Data Science from the University of Washington, where she worked on developing massively parallel sequencing assays and CRISPR screens for identifying regulators of mRNA translation.
Kaushik Ram Ganapathy
PhD Student
Kaushik joined the lab in 2021 and is a second-year graduate student. His thesis project involves developing methods for rare variant outlier detection. He is interested in using data science to help improve human health. Before joining Scripps, he co-founded and led GeoACT, a project to model COVID-19 spread in schools working at the San Diego Supercomputer Center with Dr. Ilya Zaslavsky. Kaushik holds a B.S. in Data Science from the Halicioglu Data Science Institute, UC San Diego. Google Scholar | LinkedIn
Michael Yung
PhD Student
Michael joined the lab in 2024 and is a first-year graduate student. His project will involve the analysis of genetic determinants of regulatory variation in humans using previously collected and publicly available RNA sequencing data. He is interested in using statistical learning and high-dimensional data to solve complex problems in genetics and genomics. Before joining the lab, he was working with Bruce Weir on a research project related to the interpretation of Y-STR evidence, particularly on estimating population-specific values of theta for Y-STR Profiles. Michael holds a B.S. in Statistics and B.S. in informatics from University of Washington. LinkedIn
Shiyu Wan
PhD Student
I am interested in applying deep learning techniques to analyze public health and biological data. Prior to joining the lab, I worked on developing a novel deep learning method and a feature importance test for analyzing complex survival data. I hold a Bachelor of Medical Science in Public Health and a B.A. in Economics from Peking University, as well as an M.S. in Biostatistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Sarah Silverstein
MD-PhD Student
Sarah is a fourth-year medical student at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and current PhD student with the Rutgers-NIH graduate partnership program. She joined the lab of Carsten G Bönnemann MD at the NNDCS/NIH and David Adams MD PhD at the Undiagnosed Diseased Program/NIH in 2020. Her thesis project focuses on using whole transcriptomic sequencing to improve molecular diagnosis in genome and exome negative rare disease patients. Upon graduation, she plans on pursuing clinical training in pediatric neurology with a focus in neurogenetics.
Alumni
Shiyi Wang
PhD Student
Now: Bioinformatics Scientist at Scribe Therapeutics
Eric Lu
Research Assistant
Now: MIT Biomedical Engineering PhD program
Athena Tsu
Research Technician
Now: NYU MD-PhD program
Nava Ehsan
Staff Scientist
Mahdi Shafiei
PhD Student rotation
Eric Song
Undergraduate Researcher
Now: UC San Diego MS in Computer Science
Marcela Mendoza
Postdoc
Now: ECOSUR
Bence Kotis
Research Engineer
Now: Red Hat
Yuren Dong
Intern
Now: Columbia University MS in Data Science Program
Adam May
Intern
Now: Johns Hopkins MD-PhD Program