The lab

Gerald Quon, Principal Investigator

Gerald Quon is a Canadi(eh)n Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at UC Davis. Previously, he was a postdoc at MIT and the Broad Institute, building models to predict the mechanism of action of genetic variants associated with obesity and Alzheimer’s Disease. He completed his PhD in Computer Science at the University of Toronto under Quaid Morris, where his research focused on developing models to deconvolute gene expression profiles of heterogeneous cell populations, in order to improve personalized medicine in cancer. He also holds a MSc in Biochemistry from the University of Toronto, as well as an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo.

Baran Khazaee, CS PhD student

Baran (she/hers) is a PhD student in Computer Science. Her primary research interest lies in applying Machine Learning techniques to address complex Computational Biology problems, specifically gene expression prediction. Outside academics, she enjoys exploring, cooking, and trying new foods.

Siddhant Sanghi, IGG PhD student

Siddhant (Sid) is a PhD student in the Integrative Genetics and Genomics (IGG) program. His interests lie at the intersection of Machine Learning and Biology, particularly in asking the right questions to probe complex biological systems and developing advanced machine learning methods to decipher them. He is currently working on inferring “rules” of genome organisation from genotype-to-phenotype (g2p) prediction models. In his free time, he loves to Swing dance and be around good music.

Renee Napoliello, IGG PhD student

Renee is a PhD student in IGG (Integrative Genetics and Genomics). She previously worked on developing gene therapy (using CRISPR) to treat rare neurological disorders. Her goal is to apply machine learning to empirical data to further our understanding of epigenetics and gene expression. When she’s not in lab, she’s found traipsing through the mountains, getting drawn into a new video game, or eating copious amounts of sweets.

Ricardo Valdarrago, Research Assistant

Ricardo is a recent Computer Science graduate from UC Davis who specialized in machine learning. He loves developing models to tackle all sorts of varying problems ranging from biological to computational. In his spare time, I enjoy baking, cooking and especially watching horror movies with my friends, on top of being an avid fan of board games and miniatures.

Shu Yi, BME undergrad

Shu is an undergraduate student majoring in biomedical engineering at UC Davis. She’s interested in applying machine learning to computational approaches to healthcare. Outside of research, she enjoys hiking and observing animals.

Nolan Ching, NPB undergrad

Nolan is an undergraduate studying Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior. He is interested in using statistical and machine learning methods to model physiological systems. Outside of the lab, he enjoys cooking, playing guitar, and listening to music.