BARN Team
Your Bioinformaticians on Call
BARN hosts a group of faculties, scientists and staff who will manage and scrutinize your data using their interdisciplinary skills on genomics, proteomics, computer science and statistics.
Director
Dr. Sudhir Kumar
(Evolutionary Bioinformatics)
Dr. Sudhir Kumar is a renowed expert in the field of evolutionary bioinformatics, who received an Innovation Award in Functional Genomics from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund in 2000, and is among the top ten in number of citations in the field of computer science over the last decade. Among many bioinformatics tools Dr. Kumar developed, MEGA (the Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis software) is the most highly utilized program that has been downloaded for more than 300K times. Being the director of BARN, Dr. Kumar shares his intelligence and insight with biologists on applying state-of-art bioinformatics methods on -omics data.
Dr. Sudhir Kumar
(Evolutionary Bioinformatics)
Dr. Sudhir Kumar is a renowed expert in the field of evolutionary bioinformatics, who received an Innovation Award in Functional Genomics from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund in 2000, and is among the top ten in number of citations in the field of computer science over the last decade. Among many bioinformatics tools Dr. Kumar developed, MEGA (the Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis software) is the most highly utilized program that has been downloaded for more than 300K times. Being the director of BARN, Dr. Kumar shares his intelligence and insight with biologists on applying state-of-art bioinformatics methods on -omics data.
Assistant Director
Dr. Li Liu
(NextGen Sequencing, Gene Expression, Proteomics)
Dr. Li Liu holds a B.S. degree in Biochemistry, an M.S. degree in bioinformatics and an M.D. degree in Immunology. The interdisciplinary background gives her the advantage of being able to understand biomedical research from various aspects, and thus develop the most practical analytical plan to best suite your project. Before joining BARN, she led a bioinformatics team at University of Florida developing high thoughput analysis pipelines for NextGen sequencing, gene expression and proteomic data. With eight years experience in the bioinformatics field and project management skills, she assists Dr. Kumar on coordinating and supervising the scientific activities in BARN. In her spare time, Li enjoys oil painting and mountain climbing.
Dr. Li Liu
(NextGen Sequencing, Gene Expression, Proteomics)
Dr. Li Liu holds a B.S. degree in Biochemistry, an M.S. degree in bioinformatics and an M.D. degree in Immunology. The interdisciplinary background gives her the advantage of being able to understand biomedical research from various aspects, and thus develop the most practical analytical plan to best suite your project. Before joining BARN, she led a bioinformatics team at University of Florida developing high thoughput analysis pipelines for NextGen sequencing, gene expression and proteomic data. With eight years experience in the bioinformatics field and project management skills, she assists Dr. Kumar on coordinating and supervising the scientific activities in BARN. In her spare time, Li enjoys oil painting and mountain climbing.
Faculty
Dr. Jieping Ye
(Machine Learning, Pattern Recognition)
Dr. Ye holds a B.S. degree in Mathematics, an M.S. degree in Computational Science and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science. He is an expert in machine learning and image analysis, and has conducted extensive analysis of the patterns of expression images and of medical images. For the last eight years, he has been conducting fundamental research in machine learning and data mining, developing computational methods for image analysis, and building informatics software, including the SLEP package (Sparse Learning with Efficient Projections).
Dr. Jieping Ye
(Machine Learning, Pattern Recognition)
Dr. Ye holds a B.S. degree in Mathematics, an M.S. degree in Computational Science and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science. He is an expert in machine learning and image analysis, and has conducted extensive analysis of the patterns of expression images and of medical images. For the last eight years, he has been conducting fundamental research in machine learning and data mining, developing computational methods for image analysis, and building informatics software, including the SLEP package (Sparse Learning with Efficient Projections).
Scientists
Dr. Alan Filipski
(Gene Family Analysis, Metagenomics)
Dr. Alan Filipski has a bachelor's degree in Mathematics and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Michigan State University. He has served on Mathematics faculties of Central Michigan University and Arizona State University, and worked in the engineering software industry for 20 years. For the last 10 years, he has been a Research Scientist in the ASU School of Life Sciences and the Biodesign Institute, where he has worked on a wide variety of research involving computational analysis of biological sequence data. Dr. Filipski has taught comparative genomics at ASU and is an author of 13 published research and review articles in the area of bioinformatics.
David Fisher
(Bioinformatics Programmer)
After an undergraduate education in Bioinformatics from Brigham Young University, David Fisher joined the BARN team in January 2001. Dave's undergraduate research focused on comparing phylogenetic frameworks, data visulization and molecular evolution in Influenza. Dave enjoys reading, sports and website creation/development.
Michael McCutchan
(Database Analyst)
After obtaining his B.S. in Mathematics at ASU and completing several graduate courses in the areas of quantitative analysis and operations research, Mike left the world of academia and entered the world of corporate business. Over the past 40 years he has worked at several large multi-national corporations as statistical quality control engineer, system analyst, information system designer and database analyst, both as a consultant and full time employee in various consulting, lead and managerial roles. Mike implemented one of the world's first global, multi-national data warehouses using innovative and novel methodologies. This pioneering work has been the blueprint for most of the data warehouse architectures that followed. After retiring from Hewlett-Packard, Mike relocated to his hometown of Phoenix/Tempe and accepted his current position at ASU's Biodesign Institute under Dr. Kumar, where he leads the FlyExpress project and contributes his experience to several other areas of research.
Glen Stecher
(NextGen Sequencing, Metagenomics)
Glen Stecher is a student research assistant at CEMI, whose primary focus is metagenome profile development and the assembly/analysis of NextGen sequencing data. Since joining the CEMI team in August 2009, he has participated mainly in research involving the evolutionary history of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, recovery of ancient DNA and metagenomics analysis. Furthermore, Glen contributes to the testing and maintenance of the biologist-centric software produced at CEMI. In addition to his enthusiasm for bioinformatics and his undergraduate Computer Science studies, Glen's other interests include distributed/web software development, foreign language, and physical fitness.
Dr. Alan Filipski
(Gene Family Analysis, Metagenomics)
Dr. Alan Filipski has a bachelor's degree in Mathematics and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Michigan State University. He has served on Mathematics faculties of Central Michigan University and Arizona State University, and worked in the engineering software industry for 20 years. For the last 10 years, he has been a Research Scientist in the ASU School of Life Sciences and the Biodesign Institute, where he has worked on a wide variety of research involving computational analysis of biological sequence data. Dr. Filipski has taught comparative genomics at ASU and is an author of 13 published research and review articles in the area of bioinformatics.
David Fisher
(Bioinformatics Programmer)
After an undergraduate education in Bioinformatics from Brigham Young University, David Fisher joined the BARN team in January 2001. Dave's undergraduate research focused on comparing phylogenetic frameworks, data visulization and molecular evolution in Influenza. Dave enjoys reading, sports and website creation/development.
Michael McCutchan
(Database Analyst)
After obtaining his B.S. in Mathematics at ASU and completing several graduate courses in the areas of quantitative analysis and operations research, Mike left the world of academia and entered the world of corporate business. Over the past 40 years he has worked at several large multi-national corporations as statistical quality control engineer, system analyst, information system designer and database analyst, both as a consultant and full time employee in various consulting, lead and managerial roles. Mike implemented one of the world's first global, multi-national data warehouses using innovative and novel methodologies. This pioneering work has been the blueprint for most of the data warehouse architectures that followed. After retiring from Hewlett-Packard, Mike relocated to his hometown of Phoenix/Tempe and accepted his current position at ASU's Biodesign Institute under Dr. Kumar, where he leads the FlyExpress project and contributes his experience to several other areas of research.
Glen Stecher
(NextGen Sequencing, Metagenomics)
Glen Stecher is a student research assistant at CEMI, whose primary focus is metagenome profile development and the assembly/analysis of NextGen sequencing data. Since joining the CEMI team in August 2009, he has participated mainly in research involving the evolutionary history of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, recovery of ancient DNA and metagenomics analysis. Furthermore, Glen contributes to the testing and maintenance of the biologist-centric software produced at CEMI. In addition to his enthusiasm for bioinformatics and his undergraduate Computer Science studies, Glen's other interests include distributed/web software development, foreign language, and physical fitness.
Staff
Jason Wulf
(IT Management)
As the IT officer, Jason Wulf manages the technical infrastructure for CEMI where research is conducted on multiple server platforms by scientist, post-doctorates and faculty members. Beforing joining CEMI, he concurrently managed all technology for 200+ employees in the Student Media department encompassing a television station, newspaper and nationally recognized news website. He previously served in an IT capacity at the Arizona Supreme Court and as a contracted Field Engineer for Discover Financial Services and the Vanguard Group. Jason holds three A.S. degrees in Microsoft Networking, Computer Technology and Cisco networking, a B.S. degree in Management/Leadership, an M.S. degree in Educational Leadership, and is pursuing his doctorate degree in Business Admnistration. In addition, he has eight academic and sixteen professional certificates in the IT field, and various HP/IBM equipment certifications. Outside the IT world, Jason is a published poet and a Black Belt in To-Shin Do.
Wayne Parkhurst
(Web Development, Visual Effect)
Wayne Parkhurst has over 12 years experience as a versatile designer of both print and web media. A well rounded individual, he often works with multiple applications and computer platforms to pull projects together from both the visual/design side through the backend technology/research side of the project. He has maintained large corporate websites, smaller business websites and tiny personal web pages and blogs. He has worked as a contract Multimedia Specialist on numerous projects. His unique design sensibility is very clean and professional, the result of the combination of both his backgrounds as a business graduate and also a graphic designer. In addition, he is also responsible for many print related deliverables including posters, logos, icons, signage, banners and package design which are all related to a business's coporate identity. His enthusiam for learning extends naturally to keep current with new technologies. Wayne holds an MBA degree and a B.A. degee in Visual Communication.
Jason Wulf
(IT Management)
As the IT officer, Jason Wulf manages the technical infrastructure for CEMI where research is conducted on multiple server platforms by scientist, post-doctorates and faculty members. Beforing joining CEMI, he concurrently managed all technology for 200+ employees in the Student Media department encompassing a television station, newspaper and nationally recognized news website. He previously served in an IT capacity at the Arizona Supreme Court and as a contracted Field Engineer for Discover Financial Services and the Vanguard Group. Jason holds three A.S. degrees in Microsoft Networking, Computer Technology and Cisco networking, a B.S. degree in Management/Leadership, an M.S. degree in Educational Leadership, and is pursuing his doctorate degree in Business Admnistration. In addition, he has eight academic and sixteen professional certificates in the IT field, and various HP/IBM equipment certifications. Outside the IT world, Jason is a published poet and a Black Belt in To-Shin Do.
Wayne Parkhurst
(Web Development, Visual Effect)
Wayne Parkhurst has over 12 years experience as a versatile designer of both print and web media. A well rounded individual, he often works with multiple applications and computer platforms to pull projects together from both the visual/design side through the backend technology/research side of the project. He has maintained large corporate websites, smaller business websites and tiny personal web pages and blogs. He has worked as a contract Multimedia Specialist on numerous projects. His unique design sensibility is very clean and professional, the result of the combination of both his backgrounds as a business graduate and also a graphic designer. In addition, he is also responsible for many print related deliverables including posters, logos, icons, signage, banners and package design which are all related to a business's coporate identity. His enthusiam for learning extends naturally to keep current with new technologies. Wayne holds an MBA degree and a B.A. degee in Visual Communication.