BWF Fellows
2nd Year Fellows
Monica Elisa Espinoza, BS
PhD Candidate in Quantitative Biomedical Sciences (QBS)
BWF Mentors:
Anne Hoen, PhD (https://www.hoenlab.org/)
Michael Whitfield, PhD (https://geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/whitfield/)
BWF Project:
Metagenomic Characterization of the Gastrointestinal Microbiome of Patients with Systemic Sclerosis (SSc)
My doctoral work focuses on elucidating the potential environmental triggers of Systemic Sclerosis (Ssc) that contribute to disease pathogenesis and progression. I am working to relate the immune response of patients with this disease as deduced through RNA sequencing of tissue biopsies to the microbial community metagenome found on these tissues through statistical models and multi-omic data integrating network analyses.
I am a native of Southern California, where I additionally completed my BS in Biological Sciences with Excellence in Research from the University of California, Irvine. I matriculated to Dartmouth College after my undergraduate degree to pursue tripartite training in Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Bioinformatics in the QBS program.
Carly Bobak, BA, MSc
PhD Candidate in Quantitative Biomedical Sciences (QBS)
BWF Mentors:
Jane Hill, PhD (http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/hill-lab/)
Dr. James O’Malley, PhD (https://bmds.dartmouth.edu/faculty/james-omalley-phd)
BWF Project:
Development of a multi-cohort, multi-omics approach for identifying diagnostic tuberculosis biomarkers
A multi-cohort approach allows for the commonalities between many important subgroups of a Tuberculosis (TB) susceptible population (such as children and those with HIV confection) to be studied on a larger scale in order to identify common biomarkers indicative of active TB which are more clinically relevant. I am aiming to integrate many previous transcriptomic studies to predict potential metabolic biomarkers exhaled on breath through the use of pathway and network analysis.
Carly A. Bobak is a current PhD. Candidate in the Quantitative Biomedical Sciences program at Dartmouth College and has an MSc. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Guelph. She is co-mentored by Dr. Jane E Hill (Professor of Engineering) and Dr. A. James O’Malley (Professor of Biostatistics). Carly emphasizes and advocates for the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to increase the quality of research. She is currently investigating improved computational methods for the discovery of diagnostic biomarkers for Tuberculosis. Other researchers included in this effort have expertise in analytical chemistry, biostatistics, microbiology, computer science, engineering, and infectious disease clinicians. Carly is a current fellow in of the Institutional Program Unifying Population and Laboratory Based Sciences award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and is also a Quantitative Biomedical Sciences fellow at Dartmouth College.
Meghan Muse, BA
PhD Candidate in Quantitative Biomedical Sciences (QBS)
BWF Mentors:
Brock Christensen, PhD (http://www.christensen-lab.com/)
Diane Gilbert-Diamond, ScD (https://geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/faculty/facultydb/view.php/?uid=4330)
BWF Project:
Investigating epigenetic alterations in the context of acute weight change
In my work as a second year Burroughs-Wellcome fellow, I am studying how acute weight change in the context of gestational weight gain during pregnancy as well as weight loss following bariatric surgery is associated with alterations to DNA methylation across various tissue types.
After receiving my undergraduate degree in biology from Dartmouth College, I returned to Dartmouth to pursue a graduate degree in the Quantitative Biomedical Sciences program. Through my co-mentorship with Dr. Brock Christensen and Dr. Diane Gilbert-Diamond, my research has focused on investigating associations between alterations in DNA methylation and acute weight change as a means of better understanding how BMI is associated with disease risk at the epigenetic level. I am currently a third year PhD candidate in the QBS program, a second year fellow on the Burroughs-Wellcome/Dartmouth Big Data in the Life Sciences Training Program, and a QBS teaching fellow in the Department of Epidemiology.
Jason Wells, BS
PhD Candidate in Quantitative Biomedical Sciences (QBS)
BWF Mentors:
Todd Miller, PhD (https://geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/miller/)
Brock Christensen, PhD (http://www.christensen-lab.com/)
BWF Project:
Uncovering the Molecular Mechanism Behind Estrogen-Induced Apoptosis in ER+ Breast Cancer
In some cases of ER+ breast cancer, the introduction of estrogen therapy has been shown to inhibit tumor growth and induce apoptosis of cells within the tumor. My project seeks to combine RNA-seq and ChIP-seq data to develop a novel computational approach to identifying possible mechanisms behind estrogen-induced apoptosis in ER+ breast cancer. This hopefully lead to combination therapies that can be more effective than traditional estrogen therapies.
I grew up in the San Diego area before moving to Northern California to pursue a B.S. in Genetics at the University of California, Davis. Upon completion of my degree, I moved across the country to join the Quantitative Biomedical Sciences at Dartmouth College. The unique idea of a program that combined biostatistics, epidemiology, and bioinformatics appealed to me and a PhD with these backgrounds would give me an advantage in emerging career fields. During my time at Dartmouth College, I have focused on integrating genomic data to find novel therapeutic targets in ER+ breast cancer as well as developed web-deployed tools to analyze data for those less computationally-inclined.
1st Year Fellows
Curtis L Petersen, MPH
PhD Candidate at The Dartmouth Institute (TDI)
BWF Mentors:
Brock Christensen, PhD (http://www.christensen-lab.com/)
William Weeks, MD, PhD, MBA (https://geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/faculty/facultydb/view.php/?uid=1996)
John Batsis, MD (https://geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/faculty/facultydb/view.php/?uid=3599)
BWF Project:
Connecting Epigenetic, Behavior, and Clinical Data in Modeling Health & Disease
The complex interaction between behavior and biology is difficult to examine. I’m interested in connecting remote medical sensing technology, traditional clinical data and methylation based epigenetic information to explore how a quantified behavior, such as physical activity, impacts immune functioning, biological processes, and known biomarkers.
After growing up in Bend, going to university, and working all in Oregon – I moved to complete my MPH at Dartmouth focusing on population health. As a Ph.D. student at Dartmouth I work with multidisciplinary teams analyzing dispirit data to answer novel questions around quantifying behavior and biologic change.
Daniel E Mattox, BS
PhD Candidate in Quantitative Biomedical Sciences (QBS)
BWF Mentors:
Christopher Bailey-Kellogg, PhD (https://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~cbk/)
Karl Griswold, PhD (https://engineering.dartmouth.edu/griswold/)
BWF Project:
Capturing Global Determinants of Lectin Specificity for the Development of Novel Therapeutics
The goal of this project is to utilize existing data for sugar-binding proteins to better understand mechanisms of specificity. We can then leverage these insights to engineer sugar-binding proteins to be next-generation antiviral biotheraputics with tunable specificities.
I am currently a 3rd year PhD candidate in the QBS program and a 1st year Burroughs Wellcome Big Data in the Life Sciences Fellow. I studied quantitative biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill while working in an experimental microbiology/immunology lab, helping me appreciate the benefit of applying computational methods to biomedical research. My research now is focused around integrating computational and experimental approaches to protein design. More specifically, I am interested designing and applying novel computational tools to aid and supplement experiments, then using the results of the experiments to improve the tools.
Hannah Lust, BA
PhD Candidate in Molecular & Cellular Biology (MCB)
BWF Mentors:
Yina Huang, PhD (https://geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/huang/)
Michael Whitfield, PhD (https://geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/whitfield/)
BWF Project:
Utilizing Bioinformatics to Define the Right Balance Between Immunity and Autoimmunity
The balance between autoimmunity and immunodeficiency (cancer) has been well characterized to be controlled by the net ratio of effector T cells to Tregs. My project aims to characterize interactions between and changes within distinct T cell populations in the context of both tumor immunity and autoimmunity.
I am currently a PhD Candidate in the Microbiology and Immunology Department at Dartmouth College and have a BA in Biology from the University of Maine at Farmington. Following graduation, I spent a year working at the University of Michigan as a NIH Post-Baccalaureate Research and Education Program Fellow where I learned how crucial it is to examine scientific questions through a cross-disciplinary lens as the lab I joined utilized approaches rooted in immunology, microbial genomics, and computational biology. My research now is focused around integrating computational approaches into my work looking at T cell population interactions in tumor immunity and autoimmunity.
Tamar Wheeler, BS
PhD Candidate in Molecular & Cellular Biology (MCB)
BWF Mentors:
Michael Whitfield, PhD (https://geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/whitfield/)
Brock Christensen, PhD (http://www.christensen-lab.com/)
BWF Project:
Analysis of Chromatin State in Fibroblasts from Systemic Sclerosis African American Patients in 3D Skin-like Tissues
Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a multisystem autoimmune disease with higher prevalence in African Americans and more severe clinical phenotype. My goal is to identify disease-relevant SNPs in African American patients by utilizing novel 3D skin-like SSc tissues built from patient-derived fibroblasts and Assay for Transposase-Accessible Chromatin using sequencing (ATAC-seq) to determine differential chromatin accessibility within actively transcribed regions.
Tamar grew up in rural Vermont and attended the University of Vermont where she received her Bachelor’s of Science degree in Biochemistry. It was during this time that she was introduced to Bioinformatics during an introductory elective course. Following graduation, she completed a year as a research assistant in her previous thesis lab, continuing research on the protein biochemistry of a unique transcription factor implicated in fibrotic remodeling within the context of heart disease. Her interests in molecular biology, genetics, and combined biomedical/computational biology approaches led her to the Whitfield Lab at Dartmouth College where she continues to explore her scientific interests.
