Biography

I am in my final year as a PhD student in the Integrative Biosciences graduate program in Bioinformatics and Genomics, which is part of the Huck Institutes for the Life Sciences at Penn State University.

I am co-advised by James Z. Wang, PhD, associate professor of information sciences and technology (IST) at the main campus in University Park, and Keith C. Cheng, MD, PhD, professor of pathology at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey. Briefly, my thesis research centers on the development of machine learning and content-based image retrieval tools for solving problems in zebrafish functional genomics, particularly with respect to mutations and toxicological effects that result in morphological phenotypes (at the histological level) during larval development. For more information, please visit my Research page.

I live in State College, PA, with my lovely fiancée/partner, Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch (a mass communications PhD student at Penn State), along with Frank, our 1½-year old beagle mix—though we aren't quite sure what he's mixed with. We adopted Frank through the Nittany Beagle Rescue, with whom we volunteer as dog walkers and handlers. Outside of grad school, Anne is a violinist with our local community orchestra, the Nittany Valley Symphony, which also happens to be a client of Illustrategy, the "DBA" name of my freelance graphic design business.

Please click on the various "iPhone buttons" on the left to learn more about me, Anne, and my other interests. Thanks for taking the time to visit!