I have been teaching genomics, bioinformatics, and biostatistics at the University of Oregon since 2013. I was starting my postdoc at around the same time an applied master’s program in bioinformatics and genomics launched at the UO (now the BGMP), and I eventually developed and taught (until 2019) one of the program’s three intensive, foundational summer courses: Advanced Topics in Genomic Analysis. Defining elements of this course include experiential learning at a rapid pace, exposure to many of my published genomic data sets, introduction to the R statistical language, and targeted study of RNA-seq data analysis and visualization. Several other commonly encountered genomic data analyses are also emphasized. For more details, find a past syllabus and schedule here. The program’s curriculum has evolved nimbly over the past few years, and it is a really unique, classroom-internship hybrid program. For more details, please check out the BGMP website!

I have also taught a graduate-level course called Advanced Biostatistics, which was founded by Bill Cresko. This course is entirely R-based, and originally covered fundamentals of data visualization and inference, with an overview of probability distributions and sampling theory, general linear models, experimental design, nonparametric approaches, multivariate statistics, and more. This course has evolved (and expanded!) quite a bit over the past few years and is now under the amazing stewardship of UO Math/Bio/DS faculty Peter Ralph. I’m actually teaching “ABS” in Fall 2023, based on Peter’s awesome materials and lessons.

In Spring 2020 I developed and taught a graduate course called “Foundational Statistics.” I designed this course for graduate students from all domains in need of an introduction to R, statistical thinking, and common frequentist inference approaches. I ended up writing a gitbook for the course during that first term, and taught the course again in Spring 2021 (both initial instances were completely remote) Here is a link to the gitbook.

Finally, over the past few years I have played a leading role in developing a new Master’s Program in Data Science at the UO. The primary objective has been to design a compact, highly experiential program inclusive to students from all backgrounds, regardless of STEM experience. Stay tuned for updates on the launch of this exciting DS training mission!

More teaching stuff to come in the near future…