Data Science | Ph.D. Dissertation Proposal| Erin Teeple

DATA SCIENCE  

PH.D. DISSERTATION PROPOSAL  

Erin Teeple, Ph.D. Candidate 

Tuesday, May 9th | 9:30am - 10:30am

Zoom Link: https://wpi.zoom.us/j/676349793 

Committee Members 

Elke Rundensteiner, PhD, William Smith Dean’s Professor, Computer Science & Director, Data Science, WPI. ADVISOR.

Randy Paffenroth, PhD, Associate Professor, Mathematical Sciences, Data Science & Computer Science, WPI

Carolina Ruiz, PhD, Associate Dean of Arts & Sciences, Harold L. Jurist & Heather E. Jurist Professor of Computer Science, WPI

Virginia Savova, PhD, Scientific Fellow, Global Head of Single Cell Biology, Precision Medicine & Computational Biology, Sanofi

Title: Strategies and Structures for Biological Datasets Integration and Knowledge Discovery

Abstract 

Biological research is often exploratory, with aims including identification of novel disease mechanisms or further understanding of fundamental functions or processes. The application of methods from data science are particularly suited for these aims, but a fundamental challenge in the application of data science in biomedical research is the necessity to align diverse approaches from mathematics, computer science, and statistics with equally complex knowledge sets, information sources, and research aims. This dissertation proposal engages with this challenge across tasks including correlated variables analysis (Part I & III), data integration strategy (Part II), and network analysis (Part II & III). The unifying theme across these works proposed for the dissertation are requirements for a systematic approach which starts from the parallel formulation of research aims as simultaneously biological domain questions and data science problems.