Mentors

Timothy E. Allen teaches and mentors students in the areas of computational modeling of complex biological systems, molecular and cell biology assays, and medical device design.

Laura Barnes is a professor in the Department of Systems and Information Engineering. She is the Associate Director of Link Lab and directs the Sensing Systems for Health Lab which focuses on designing impactful, technology-enabled solutions for improving health and well-being.

Silvia Blemker uses experimental and computational models to characterize the relationships between muscle structure, biomechanical properties, biology, and function in order to develop new treatments for musculoskeletal disease

Philip E. Bourne leads a range of initiatives to encourage and facilitate the use of big data in large-scale research across the scientific and technological disciplines, with special emphasis on structural bioinformatics and systems pharmacology.

Christopher Deppman has been interested in the mechanisms underlying long-distance signaling in the context of nervous system development since he was a post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the laboratory of David Ginty (now at Harvard). 

Dr. Fallahi-Sichani leads a Systems Biology research program aiming to discover the fundamental mechanisms through which human cancer cells respond heterogeneously to environmental and therapeutic perturbations.

Gregory J. Gerling is a Professor of Systems Engineering at the University of Virginia. His research spans fields of haptics, computational neuroscience, UX/UI, human factors and ergonomics, biomechanics, and human–machine interaction.

Kevin Janes designs and uses systems bioengineering approaches to analyze cell signaling and transcriptional networks in cancer and infectious disease.

Work in the Lazzara Lab employs a combination of experimental and computational methods to study problems in cell signaling, the complex biochemical process cells use to make decisions.

Clint Miller studies the genetic and environmental risk factors for coronary artery disease and other complex cardiovascular diseases using a combination of large-scale multi-omics profiling and genetic and drug perturbations. He is an Assistant Professor in Public Health Sciences and a resident member of the Center for Public Health Genomics.

Kristen Naegle uses data- and computational-driven approaches to predict, and experimental approaches to test, the regulation and function of tyrosine phosphorylation in complex networks.

Jason Papin, Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, develops computational models of cellular networks and performs experiments to characterize biological systems relevant to human disease. After his training in Bioengineering at University of California, San Diego, Jason Papin joined the faculty at University of Virginia in 2005.

Shayn Peirce-Cottler develops computational models and combines them with wet lab experiments and machine learning to study how tissues heal after injury and to develop new therapies for inducing tissue regeneration.

Jeff Saucerman, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, combines computational models and high-throughput experiments to discover molecular networks and drugs that control cardiac remodeling.

Dr. Chongzhi Zang is an associate professor and resident faculty member in the Center for Public Health Genomics, University of Virginia. He holds faculty appointments in the Departments of Public Health Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, and Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics.

Aidong Zhang's research focuses on developing machine learning approaches to interpretable and fair learning, concept-based learning, federated learning, and generative AI. She also works on large language models for hypothesis generations for scientific discovery.

Eli Zunder analyzes stem cell fate using single cell mass cytometry and high-dimensional modeling of cell lineage trajectories. He received his Ph.D. in Biophysics from UCSF in 2009.