Brandeis Online
Faculty and Advisory Board
Learn from bioinformatics experts.
Whether spearheading genetics research at leading pharmaceutical companies or designing biological models, our faculty and advisory board members represent the best and brightest of the bioinformatics field. They structure a curriculum that draws on real-world expertise and connections that ultimately help you advance your career goals.
Meet Our Featured Faculty
Alan Cheng, PhD, is a director of chemistry, modeling, and informatics at Merck Research Labs in South San Francisco, California, where he works on the discovery of new medicines for cardiac-metabolic diseases and oncology. His research interests include computer-aided drug design and biological sequence-structure relationships. He received a PhD from the University of California, San Francisco, and undergraduate degrees from the University of California at Berkeley.
Richard Allen, PhD, is a Research Fellow at Pfizer, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At Pfizer, he works to apply mathematical and quantitative techniques to address critical uncertainties in the drug discovery and development process. His research interests include: systems modeling of physiology, generation and application of virtual patients and populations, and reduction of mechanistic models. Before joining Pfizer, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and received his PhD from University of College London and an undergraduate degree from the University of Durham, UK.
Karol Estrada
Bioinformatics Instructor
VP Translational Genomics, Maze Therapeutics
Karol Estrada, PhD, is a strategic, enterprising and accomplished human genomics executive respected for 15+ years of experience as a leader in human genetics with a focus on integrating genomic knowledge to discover, validate and improve drug targets. He is the Vice President of Translational Genomics at Maze Therapeutics. He is an internally recognized researcher in the field of human genetics with over 60 publications in high impact factor journals.
Before joining Maze Therapeutics, he held increasing levels of responsibility roles at BioMarin and Biogen. He has served on several international consortia focused on the design and conduct of large genetics studies for a range of human traits and diseases.
Dr. Estrada’s teaching in the Master of Science in Bioinformatics focuses on the use of modern approaches for the study of human genetics, including statistical genetics and genetic epidemiology.
Timothy Song
Bioinformatics Instructor
Bioinformatics Engineer IV, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Timothy Song, MS, is a bioinformatics engineer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He works on creating tools for the cancer informatics pipeline and aiding oncologists in their research. His prior work includes analyzing Influenza viral diversity in human populations from next generation sequencing data.