News:

I am an Assistant Professor at Rice University in the Departments of Statistics and the Electrical and Computer Engineering (by courtesy) and at Baylor College of Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics-Neurology. Also, I am a member of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital.

My research interests are in developing mathematical tools to help scientists understand massive amounts of data. Technological advances in medicine, engineering, the Internet, and finance have produced larger and more complex data sets. By using techniques from artificial intelligence, optimization theory, and high-performance computing, I solve the statistical problems arising from these new technologies. In particular, I develop adaptive methods that have the flexibility to let the data decide which of many attributes are best to model. Consider functional MRIs, for example, that capture three-dimensional images (approximately 100,000 pixels) of the brain over time (approximately 5,000 time points). By letting the data account for its structure (3D image), sparse activation locations, and smooth temporal patterns, my methods are better able to identify the brain regions of activation and their corresponding activation patterns, the signal in which neuroscientists are most interested. My applied research interests include neuroimaging, high-throughput genomics, imaging, and metabolomics.