I am a sixth year MD/PhD candidate at the University of Virginia in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. I'm also a fanatical member of the Hokie Nation, and never miss an opportunity to taunt the nearest Wahoo about anything that comes to mind. I believe that removing “Home of the Fighting Gobblers” from Lane Stadium was a direct insult to the gods of football, and we will never win a national championship until it returns and “Orange Effect Day” is banned forever. I have lived in many places in the state of Virginia, none better than Newport, a tiny town in a valley west of Blacksburg. I love the mountains of Virginia, hiking on the Appalachian Trail, cooking, and working on my house, car, and gardens.
MD/PhD Candidate, Biomedical Engineering, present
Bachelor of Science, Biology, May 2003
I'm interested in the interaction of leukocytes with the vascular endothelium in angiogenesis and atherosclerosis. Both of these processes involve cellular integration of complex signals and the formation of patterns such as new vascular networks and atherosclerotic plaques. I am using agent-based modeling (ABM) as a tool to understand the mechanisms behind these processes with the end goal of making accurate predictions about the effects of new treatments and interventions. ABM involves computational simulation of tissues as individual cells acting according to literature-based or experimentally-derived sets of rules. These rules involve response to environmental factors, cytokines, cell-cell contact and other stimuli. The actions of groups of these /in silico/ cells can lead to emergent patterns characteristic of the biological processes discussed above.
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