Coursework / Training
During my time at UC San Diego, its undergraduate bioinformatics program was ranked first nationally by U.S. News & World Report and is currently ranked second. My coursework provided a foundation in psychology, natural sciences, software development and quantitative methods which I have continued to build on through independent study.
Statistics:
School Coursework: Statistics for Psychology, Probability and Statistics for Bioinformatics, Calculus 1-3, Discrete Math, Linear Algebra.
Additional Coursework: After graduation, I reviewed my Statistics for Psychology course, redid its assignments by hand, and reproduced its SPSS analyses in R (see GitHub). I also completed Publication Academy’s statistics track and DataCamp’s 52-hour Statistician in R career track, covering regression, survival analysis, factor analysis, bootstrapping, hierarchical models, survey data and Bayesian data analysis. View the Statistician in R certificate.
Machine Learning:
School Coursework: I took foundational computer science classes, including Data Structures and Algorithms. Biological Databases (BENG 182) built on this foundation and my natural science coursework, focusing on developing command-line bioinformatics software including a first-order Markov model for predicting CpG islands.
Additional coursework: I completed the MIT Introduction to Deep Learning bootcamp, watching public lectures and completing lab assignments in PyTorch. I also completed the Machine Learning Specialization taught by Andrew Ng. Before attempting my CNN project, I completed online datacamp courses in machine learning with scikit-learn, pytorch and XGBoost.
Psychology and Research Methods:
School Coursework: Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Science of Parenting, AP Psychology.
Additional Coursework: Publication academy Research Methods, Network analysis workshop.
Neuroscience/Natural Sciences:
School Coursework: Molecular Biology, Genetics, Structural Biochemistry, Physics 1-3, Chemistry 1-3, Organic Chemistry, Drugs and Behavior, Bioinformatics Algorithms, Advanced Bioinformatics Lab, AP Biology.
Additional Coursework: Fundamentals of Neuroscience, Human Behavioral Biology, Fundamental Neuroscience for Neuroimaging and Neurohacking in R (structural MRI data analysis).