About me
I am Varun and I am a final year doctoral candidate in the Genomics and Computational Biology graduate group at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.
I am fortunate to be advised by Prof. Ben Voight. I work in the areas of Computational Genomics/Statistical Genetics. I apply concepts from statistics, algorithms, machine learning alongwith solid biological intuition to problems in evolutionary and disease genetics.
My thesis research is aimed at (a) modeling the variability in the human mutation/substitution rate, (b) finding biological and evolutionary features that explain this variability, and (c) developing statistics/toolkits that leverage this variability in the mutation rate to find causal loci and understand biology behind different genetic disorders (both monogenic and complex diseases). For more information, please see the Research and Publications section of my website.
I am very grateful to have amazing professors like Warren Ewens, Struan Grant, Casey Brown, John Hogenesch and Suzanne Leal on my thesis committee.
Here is a link to my Twitter account
Education
- PhD in Genomics and Computational Biology: University of Pennsylvania, Summer 2011 - Present
- Masters in Computer and Information Science: University of Pennsylvania, Fall 2010
- Cumulative GPA: 3.88/4
- B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering: Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India Spring 2008
- Cumulative GPA: 9.58/10,
- Departmental Rank: 1st/50, Institutional Rank: 2nd/234
- High School: City Montessori School, Lucknow, India, Spring 2004
- Aggregate 95% (Year 2004), Aggregate 94% (Year 2002)