IGSP Faculty

Barbara Engelhardt, PhD

Visiting Research Scholar, Biostatistics & Bioinformatics

Barbara Engelhardt graduated from Stanford University and received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, advised by Professor Michael Jordan. She did postdoctoral research at University of Chicago working with Professor Matthew Stephens. Interspersed among her academic experiences, she spent two years working at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a summer at Google Research, and a year at 23andMe. She received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship, and the Walter M. Fitch Prize from the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. Her work focuses on understanding the underlying biological mechanisms of complex phenotypes and human diseases.

Research Statement

The Engelhardt Lab develops statistical models and methods for high-dimensional biological data. In particular, we study human genetic variation and its impact on genomic regulation, including gene expression and splicing, with the goal of identifying mechanisms of human disorders and diseases. There are a wide range of projects in these areas in the lab, including:

• Sparse factor analysis for estimating population structure, low-dimensional mapping of complex phenotypes, and gene expression analysis
• Statistical models for improving power to detect trans-expression quantitative trait loci
• Alternative splicing and its role in complex phenotypes
• Genome-wide association studies for pharmacogenomic, metabolic,and cardiovascular phenotypes

Recent Publications