Bioinformatics Scientist

Personal summary

I am writing to express my enthusiasm for the Bioinformatics Consultant position at your company. With over 20 years of experience in bioinformatics, computational biology, and client-facing project leadership, I am eager to leverage my expertise in pipeline development, cloud / high-performance computing (HPC), and cross-industry collaboration to deliver innovative solutions for your clients in the life sciences sector. As Senior Data Scientist at QwaNTI, I designed and deployed scalable bioinformatics workflows (Bash / Nextflow) for global pharmaceutical and biotech clients, including RNA-Seq differential expression pipelines and metagenomics tools for microbiome analysis. By containerizing workflows with Docker/Singularity and optimizing cloud-based execution (AWS, GCP), I reduced processing times by 40% while ensuring reproducibility—an approach I am excited to bring to your company to accelerate client projects. At Public Health Ontario (PHO), I founded and led the Bio-Computing Program, where I architected a $400K HPC cluster (540 cores, 120 TB NAS) and developed clinical-grade pipelines for pathogen genomics and outbreak surveillance. For example, I led a team to create a k-mer-based rapid pathogen identification tool that improved outbreak response times by 35%. My experience integrating genomic data with EHR/LIMS systems using HL7 FHIR and SNOMED CT standards aligns with your focus on delivering actionable, client-ready insights. Beyond technical expertise, I excel at translating complex bioinformatics concepts for diverse audiences. As a Consultant for the WHO and ICGC, I collaborated with non-technical stakeholders to design platforms like the WHO-Measles Nucleotide Surveillance System (MeaNS), which streamlined global outbreak tracking through automated phylogenetics and GIS mapping. Similarly, at the University of Toronto, I mentored researchers in applying machine learning to antimicrobial resistance prediction. My hybrid background in academia, public health, and industry, combined with my agility in adapting multitude of bioinformatics, data analysis, integration, visualization, and machine learning tools to client needs, positions me to contribute at once to your mission.

Skills

Python10 R (programming language)15 Perl20 PostgreSQL20 Mysql20 Linux development20 Nextflow5