CompBio Cafe

Jenea and Melyssa discuss Dr. Finley's journey into professorship as a computational researcher/mathematical biologist.

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Dr. Stacey Finley is Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Quantitative & Computational Biology, at the University of Southern California and the inaugural holder of the Nichole A. and Thuan Q. Pham Professorship. Dr. Finley received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Florida A & M University and obtained her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University. She completed postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Finley joined the faculty at USC in 2013, and she leads the Computational Systems Biology Laboratory. Dr. Finley has a joint appointment in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and she is a member of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Finley is also a standing member of the MABS Study Section at NIH. Her research has been supported by grants from the NSF, NIH, and American Cancer Society.

Selected honors. 2016 NSF Faculty Early CAREER Award; 2016 Young Innovator by the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering journal; Leah Edelstein-Keshet Prize from the Society of Mathematical Biology; Junior Research Award from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering; the Hanna Reisler Mentorship Award; 2018 AACR NextGen Star; 2018 Orange County Engineering Council Outstanding Young Engineer; 2021 Elected Fellow of American Institute for Biological and Medical Engineering; 2022 Elected Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society

Lab website: https://csbl.usc.edu/

Lab Twitter: https://twitter.com/USCSysBio_Lab

Follow Dr. Finley's student, Diamond Mangrum, on Instagram (author of the paper referenced by Ijeoma in the episode): https://www.instagram.com/melanated.phd/?hl=en . She aims to demystify the Ph.D. process!

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The CompBio Cafe Podcast is brewing up fresh perspectives in the CompBio world. Hosts Jenea Adams and Melyssa Minto, PhD are two trained computational biologists who serve the Black Women in Computational Biology Network (BWCB).

Learn more about us at linktr.ee/bwcb.

Subscribe to CompBio Cafe wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review once you've listened to a few episodes.

Jenea and Melyssa discuss opportunities and experiences attending conferences from the perspective of diversity, belonging, and accessibility.

What are your thoughts on ways that conference organizations can increase accessibility and broaden participation? Let us know by emailing [email protected] or leave a voicemail at +1-302-715-2922.

Links mentioned :

• https://binningsingletons.com/
• https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.04.588111v2.full

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The CompBio Cafe Podcast is brewing up fresh perspectives in the CompBio world. Hosts Jenea Adams and Melyssa Minto, PhD are two trained computational biologists who serve the Black Women in Computational Biology Network (BWCB).

Learn more about us at linktr.ee/bwcb.

Subscribe to CompBio Cafe wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review once you've listened to a few episodes.

In this episode, Ijeoma guest hosts a conversation with Francesca Tuazon, Founder and CEO of Science&. Science& uplifts the next generation of cutting-edge scientists with skills from the visual, written, and performance arts. We enter the world at the intersection of art and data storytelling in science.

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The CompBio Cafe Podcast is brewing up fresh perspectives in the CompBio world. Hosts Jenea Adams and Melyssa Minto, PhD are two trained computational biologists who serve the Black Women in Computational Biology Network (BWCB).

Learn more about us at linktr.ee/bwcb.

Subscribe to CompBio Cafe wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review once you've listened to a few episodes.

Melyssa and Jenea discuss qualities of a work environment that is healthy and supportive for their growth as computational biologists.

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The CompBio Cafe Podcast is brewing up fresh perspectives in the CompBio world. Hosts Jenea Adams and Melyssa Minto, PhD are two trained computational biologists who serve the Black Women in Computational Biology Network (BWCB).

Learn more about us at linktr.ee/bwcb.

Subscribe to CompBio Cafe wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review once you've listened to a few episodes.

In this episode, Melyssa and Jenea interview Dean Lee (Novartis) about his initiative Figure One Lab.

Figure One Lab helps people build a computational biology (compbio) portfolio by re-enacting Figure 1 of biology papers. We discuss key insights for using storytelling to land computational biology roles in biotech and pharma.

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The CompBio Cafe Podcast is brewing up fresh perspectives in the CompBio world. Hosts Jenea Adams and Melyssa Minto, PhD are two trained computational biologists who serve the Black Women in Computational Biology Network (BWCB).

Learn more about us at linktr.ee/bwcb.

Subscribe to CompBio Cafe wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review once you've listened to a few episodes.

Melyssa and Jenea discuss how they keep up with comp bio via social media, conferences, and the literature.

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The CompBio Cafe Podcast is brewing up fresh perspectives in the CompBio world. Hosts Jenea Adams and Melyssa Minto, PhD are two trained computational biologists who serve the Black Women in Computational Biology Network (BWCB).

Learn more about us at linktr.ee/bwcb.

Subscribe to CompBio Cafe wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review once you've listened to a few episodes.

We talk to Aneesa Valentine, MS, about everything from bioinformatics to data science and AI. After leaving her PhD program, she embarked on a journey in data science. We explore her experience outside of academia and into the world of data science and AI.

About Aneesa

Aneesa is a Data Scientist and Researcher at heart.

She earnestly began Biosciences Research during undergrad, where she participated in several

Research Honors programs (MARC, C-STEP etc.). Throughout her undergraduate tenure, in

addition to conducting research at her alma mater Brooklyn College, she interned at several R1

institutions allowing her to contribute to research projects spanning Biophysics, Microbiology &

and Genetics.

Post undergrad, she completed a Post Baccalaureate Research Program (PREP) at Tufts

University, pushing the boundaries of Infectious Diseases research using humanoid models of

gastrointestinal fungal infection.

On par with her academic career pursuits, she began her PhD in Bioinformatics at the Albert

Einstein College of Medicine where she became enamored with Computational methods,

specifically supporting Genomics Research. Though the data she generated contributed to a

research publication during her brief graduate tenure, her love for algorithms prematurely drew

her to an industry career in Data Science & AI.

She effectively “mastered out” of her program, and more recently became a Data Scientist in the

commercial Data Science space. Since then, she has developed real-world Machine Machine

Learning & Analytics expertise by leading and contributing to projects impacting millions of

individuals.

Aneesa’s domain expertise in Biology and Bioinformatics has challenged her to exploit her

rigorous quantitative training and intellectual curiosity to generate impact beyond the academy.

Aneesa's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aneesav/

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The CompBio Cafe Podcast is brewing up fresh perspectives in the CompBio world. Hosts Jenea Adams and Melyssa Minto, PhD are two trained computational biologists who serve the Black Women in Computational Biology Network (BWCB).

Learn more about us at blackwomencompbio.org

Subscribe to CompBio Cafe wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review once you've listened to a few episodes!

In this episode, we dive into the world of spatial transcriptomics with Kalen Clifton, PhD Candidate Johns Hopkins University in the JEFworks Lab with Dr. Jean Fan. We highlight her latest Nature Communications paper detailing STalign: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-43915-7.

You can find our guest, Kalen Clifton, on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kalen-clifton/ and X (formerly twitter) here: https://x.com/kalen_clifton?s=20

Melyssa and Jenea attempt to answer the age-old question: what is computational biology?

We've reimagined our podcast! Here's a taste of what you can look forward to this season.