Scholarship

Overview

I am a biostatistician and statistical geneticist with scholarly interests in both statistical methods development and collaborative applications. My work focuses on developing and applying statistical methods to better understand human health and genetics, with a recent emphasis on genetic studies in populations with mixed ancestry (also known as “admixed populations”). Methodologically, I am particularly interested in addressing the statistical challenges posed by genetic data, such as their high dimensional nature, complicated correlation structure, and concerns about confounding and collider bias that can arise in these studies. As a teacher-scholar at a small liberal arts institution, I engage undergraduates in this work through summer research projects, honors theses, and a newly designed course in statistical genetics. My close collaboration with students within and beyond the classroom has also inspired an increasing engagement in the scholarship of teaching and learning, with a focus thus far on alternative grading.

Recent Projects

Statistical Genetics Methods

  • Understanding the power—and limitations—of admixture mapping studies, in collaboration with Macalester student Tina Chen (’25)

  • Illustrating potential pitfalls of using principal component analysis to infer and control for population structure in genome-wide association studies

    • Published in PLOS Genetics [link]

  • Updating STEAM—an R package that implements methods to adjust for multiple testing concerns that arise in genome-wide admixture mapping studies—in collaboration with Macalester students Zuofu Huang (’21), Tina Chen (’25), Sydney Ohr (’26), and Katelyn McClure (’26)

Collaborative Applications

  • Exploring disparities in B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) survival, in collaboration with Macalester student Sofia Barragan (’22) and investigators at the University of Minnesota

    • Published in Cancer Medicine [link]

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

  • Exploring the four dimensions of equity (access, achievement, identity, power) posed by Gutiérrez (2009) as relates to the topic of grading

    • Published as a guest post on Grading for Growth [link] (and since recognized as one of the most popular posts of the year [link] and all time [link])

Publications

You can find a full list of publications on my CV or Google Scholar.