Alex Lu
I’m a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research New England. I lead a research program around the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning to big biological datasets.
Modern biological experiments generate an unprecedented amount of data. How do we discover new biology when we have millions of microscopy images or protein sequences, and it becomes impossible to look at data at a one-by-one basis anymore? My research develops machine learning methods for discovering hypotheses in biology.
I have broad research interests, but central themes include:
- Reducing effort and bias in applying machine learning: The best-performing machine learning methods often require a large volume of labeled training data. Not only is this time-consuming, but it biases models to be more sensitive to biology we have prior knowledge of – we might not be able to discover unknown biology, since we can’t label it. To address these barriers, I focus on self-supervised machine learning methods.
- Learning relevant signal without direct specification: In biology, one scientist’s signal is another scientist’s noise: different biologists simply have different questions and are interested in learning different things from even the same data. I research how we can train machine learning models to extract relevant biological signal from data (even when we don’t know how to directly specify this), and robust to non-biological noise.
- Interpretation and visualization: After we’ve trained a model, how do we extract insights? I’m interested in how we can use interpretation and visualization techniques to identify new biological hypotheses.
Tom Rice
Dr. Tom Rice is an astronomer and educator who currently works as an Education and Mentoring Specialist for the American Astronomical Society, the largest professional society of astronomers and astrophysicists in North America. Dr. Rice previously taught and researched at Columbia University as a Science Fellow. A first-generation college student at Harvard University (2008-2012), he received his Ph.D. in astronomy in 2019 from the University of Michigan. He grew up in a Deaf, ASL speaking family in Oregon City, Oregon.
Hands & Flippers for Marine Conservation Virtual Tour
Learn with Jennifer Reilly, a Deaf marine biologist from Loggerhead Marinelife Center, a 501(c)(3) organization in Florida about how to become better advocates in marine conservation, using sea turtles as a focal point. She will lead us on a virtual tour of the LMC facility and meet some of their marine patients – all guided […]
Rain Bosworth
Dr. Rain Bosworth is an assistant professor in the Department of Liberal Studies at RIT/NTID. She is a deaf experimental psychologist, studying development of perception and language in infants and children at the newly-founded Perception, Language and Attention in Youth (PLAY) Lab. For her doctoral degree at the University of California, San Diego, she studied visual motion processing and attention in deaf adults, to better understand how deafness and sign language experience impact perceptual abilities. She is currently investigating visual and tactile behaviors in infants, children and adults to address questions about how we learn and process sign language. She has also studied how easily visual abilities are recovered in children who were treated for congenital eye disorders. Together, these lines of research reveal how early sensory input shapes perception, cognition, and language processing. Dr. Bosworth teaches Intro to Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Biopsychology, and Research Methods.
Science Communication in ASL
Are you a deaf scientist passionate about science communication and outreach? I have a project that is perfect for you! Producing videos in ASL and subtitles talking about your research project, to be shared on social media.
TechGirlz
TechGirlz is a week-long summer camp for deaf or hard-of-hearing girls entering 7th, 8th, or 9th grade who are interested in science, technology, engineering and math.
TechBoyz
TechBoyz is a week-long summer camp for deaf or hard-of-hearing boys entering 7th, 8th, or 9th grade who are interested in science, technology, engineering and math.
UPMC Hillman Cancer Center Academy
Eight weeks of cutting edge cancer research and STEM career preparation for high school students. Attention Deaf and Hard of Hearing high school students interested in science! Applications are now open for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Hillman Cancer Center.
Alicia Wooten
I am focused on studying the innate immune response in the lungs when exposed to Streptococcus pneumoniae. By looking at how we can better understand the host-pathogen response, it will allow for increased treatment to bacterial pneumonia.
Jaime Wilson
neuropsychology is dedicated to learning about and diagnosing conditions related to the brain and nervous system.