I'm an Assistant Professor of Genetics in the Computational Medicine Program and Lineberger Cancer Center
at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.
I help run the Personalized Immunotherapy Research Lab at UNC where we work on TCR therapeutics, T-cell epitope discovery, cancer genomics, machine learning for immunology, and making personalized cancer immunotherapies which actually do something useful.
I help run the Personalized Immunotherapy Research Lab at UNC where we work on TCR therapeutics, T-cell epitope discovery, cancer genomics, machine learning for immunology, and making personalized cancer immunotherapies which actually do something useful.
Blogs
- Personalized Immunotherapy Research Lab
- My research lab at UNC Chapel Hill with posts about experimental and computational immunology, cancer genomics, and machine learning
- explain my data
- Grad school era writings on machine learning and data analysis
- φ-node
- My previous research life: translating programs into faster programs
Teaching
- Machine Learning for Computational Biology (Fall 2025, co-taught with Natalie Stanley)
- Introduction to machine learning from basic concepts to deep learning with a focus on predictions from biological data
- Defense Against The Dark Arts (Fall 2023)
- Graduate survey of recurring statistical errors and pitfalls which are sometimes used to exaggerate the weight of evidence for novel biological claims or inflate the estimated accuracy of proposed predictive biomedical models. This course focuses on misapplied analyses of data sources where a small number of biological samples are quantified into very high dimensional feature spaces, such as in genomics, proteomics, and biomedical imaging.
- Programming Languages Recitation (Fall 2011)
- Recitation section for a graduate programming languages class, surveying both theoretical foundations of PL theory and brief forays into using many different languages.
Writing & Presentations
-
Machines of Loving Hype: Let’s get specific about “curing cancer with AI”
Presented at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute (September 3rd, 2025) -
Neoantigens beyond SNVs: embracing the full spectrum of antigenic dark matter in tumors
Presented at CIMT 2021 (May 12th, 2021) -
Precision vaccine design from cancer to SARS-CoV-2 and back
Presented at the Lineberger Cancer Center faculty lunch (September 14th, 2020) -
Personalized Cancer Vaccines: Literature Review
Written for Epivax Oncology (January 2018) -
Machine Learning for Personalized Cancer Vaccines
Presented at Data Science Salon - Miami (February 9th, 2018) -
Personalized Cancer Vaccines: History, Preclinical Evidence, and Ongoing Trials
Presented at Neoantigens & Cancer Immunotherapy Symposium (March 27th, 2017) -
Computational Tools for Cancer Neoantigens and Mount Sinai's Personalized Vaccine Trial
Presented at the University of Miami's Center for Computational Science (February 27th, 2017) -
Python Libraries for Deep Learning with Sequences
Video from PyData NYC 2015 -
Personalized Cancer Vaccine Pipeline (pdf)
Poster for Systems Biology of Cancer Therapeutics Symposium (October 27th, 2014) -
CudaTree: Training Random Forests on the GPU
GPU Technology Conference (March 25th, 2014) -
Python on the GPU with Parakeet
Slides for PyData NYC (November 10th, 2013) -
Parakeet: A Runtime Compiler for Numerical Python (pdf)
Slides for PyData Boston (July 27th, 2013) - Resources for Learning OCaml (October 6th, 2011)
- Tips for Solving the Dating Game (or, a machine learning primer) (Nov. 12th, 2008)
- C++ Template Metaprogramming Insanity (Nov. 10th, 2007)
Clinical Trials
I helped start and run the PGV (personalized genomic vaccine) series of therapeutic cancer vaccine at Mount Sinai:- Safety and Immunogenicity of Personalized Genomic Vaccine to Treat Malignancies
- Safety and Immunogenicity of Personalized Genomic Vaccine and Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) to Treat Glioblastoma
- Atezolizumab Given in Combination With a Personalized Vaccine in Patients With Urothelial Cancer
Art
- punch.card.collective (2021)
- Ongoing collaboration working on generative fiber arts and proto-computational pattern crafts
- Weave (2021)
- Early experiments in generating textile patterns and weaving drafts