Master of Science Degrees: Alumni Career Paths & Recent Graduates-Department of Biological Sciences - Carnegie Mellon University

Master of Science Degrees: Alumni Career Paths & Recent Graduates

M.S. in Computational Biology | M.S. in Biological Sciences

Career paths of M.S. graduates of the Department of Biological Sciences have led to research, teaching, and administrative positions at renowned academic institutions. Graduates are also leaders in industry and government.

M.S. in Computational Biology

2012 Graduates

Akanksha Bhardwaj

David Hamilton

Yutong Li

Songdet Nillasithanukroh

Jinxue Zhou

2011 Graduates

Walter J. Lewis
Modeling Gene Expression: Understanding the Effects of Transcription Factor Binding Site Arrangement on Gene Expression in the Sea Star
Advisor: Dr. Veronica Hinman

Anish Chakka

Naveen Chandramohan

William Foran
Postgraduate Plans: Data Coordinator/Analyst at UPMC's Department of Psychiatry, Neurocognitive Development Lab

Ajay Harikrishna

Philip Davidson
A Method for Identifying Conformational Sub-states in Monte Carlo Simulations of Proteins with Applications to Decoy Detection and the Analysis of Conformational Landscapes
Postgraduate Plans: Ph.D. in Biological Sciences Program at Carnegie Mellon University

Xian Feng
Visualizing Virus Self-assembly Simulation with GPU Acceleration
Advisor: Russell S. Schwartz, Ph.D.
Postgraduate Plans: Research Programmer in the Schwartz lab at Carnegie Mellon

Jesse Stokum
Functional Network Connectivity in Patients with Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
Advisors: William H. Theodore, M.D. and William D. Gaillard, M.D., NIH
Postgraduate Plans: University of Maryland M.D/Ph.D. Program

Jorge A. Vendries Algarin

2010 Graduates

Jeya Balaji Balasubramanian

James Dang

Vardhan Dharnidharka
Postgraduate Plans: Financial Software Developer, Bloomberg LP

Swetha Garimalla
Postgraduate Plans: Bioinformatics Specialist, University of Arkansas

Rupinder Khandpur
Fast Parameter Synthesis in Agent-based Models Using Abstraction Refinement

Advisor: Christopher J. Langmead, Ph.D.
Postgraduate Plans: Research Programmer in the Schwartz lab at Carnegie Mellon

Cheng-Neng Ko
Postgraduate Plans: Financial Software Developer, Bloomberg LP

M. Senthil Kumar
The Equilibrium and Non-Equilibrium Dynamics of Self-Assembly Systems

Advisors: Russell S. Schwartz, Ph.D. and Markus Deserno, Ph.D.

Soumya Luthra
Postgraduate Plans: University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute

Shannon Quinn
Waldo: A Framework for Inferring Protein Location as a Function of Condition

Advisor: Robert F. Murphy, Ph.D.
Postgraduate Plans: Carnegie Mellon/University of Pittsburgh Ph.D. in Computational Biology program

Chuang Wu

2009 Graduates

Arshi Arora
Postgraduate Plans: Health Sciences Fellow in the Faeder lab at the University of Pittsburgh

Ivan Cao-berg
SLML Level 1.0: Communicating Subcellular Location Protein Patterns for Systems Biology

Advisor: Robert Murphy

Jen-Hao Cheng

Katherine D'Aco
Association Testing Using Local SNP Phylogenies

Advisor: Russell Schwartz

Joshua Earl
Postgraduate Plans: Director of Bioinformatics at the Center for Genomic Sciences at Allegheny General Hospital

Donghun Lee
Postgraduate Plans: Princeton University, Ph.D. Program

Yaw Nti-Addae
Inferring Gene Interactions in Lung and Breast Cancers Through Gene Regulatory Networks Assisted by Prior Knowledge

Advisor: Russell Schwartz
Postgraduate Plans: Scientific Analyst, Dow AgroSciences

Vamsee Pillalamarri

Balamuruganand Selvaraj
Postgraduate Plans: Computational Biology Analyst in the Flybase group at Indiana University, Bloomington

Irtisha Singh
Systems and Structural Biology in HIV-1 Drug Discovery

Advisor: Judith Klein Seetharaman
Postgraduate Plans: Bioinformatics Analyst, Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Pittsburgh. She will begin the Ph.D. program in computational biology and medicine brought together by Cornell University, Weil Cornell Medical College and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the fall of 2011.

Rohini Sinha
Postgraduate Plans: Bioinformatician at the University of Pennsylvania

Gregory Smith
Postgraduation Plans: Carnegie Mellon University, Ph.D. Program

Shreedharan Sriram
Postgraduate Plans: Computational Biologist at Dow Agrosciences

Arpit Tandon
Numerical Modeling of the Immune Cell Deformation Caused by the Anti-cancer Compound Paclitaxel

Advisor: Ivan Viktorovich Maly, University of Pittsburgh

2008 Graduates

Lindy Briggs

Jessica McGillen
Differential Equations Modeling of Long-term HIV Infection in Untreated Patients

Advisor: Shlomo Ta'asan
Postgraduate Plans: Oxford University, Ph.D. Program

Yongjin Park
Gene Expression Analyses by Statistical Learning Methods

Advisor: Russell S. Schwartz

Dmitriy Patek

Ayush Raman
Postgraduate Plans: Bioinformatics Scientist, Institute for Systems Biology

2007 Graduates

Aaron Huttner

Robert Montgomery
Postgraduate Plans: Venter Institute

2006 Graduates

Amina Abdullah

Jacob Joseph
Postgraduate Plans: Carnegie Mellon University, Ph.D. Program in Computational Biology

Aly Khan
Postgraduate Plans: Columbia University

Prateek Kumar
Postgraduate Plans: Venter Institute

Bormi Shin

Swapnil Upganlawar

2005 Graduates

Ka-Young An

Akshay Lalla
Postgraduate Plans: Celerant Consulting

Peter M. Zullo

2004 Graduates

Neil Christopher

Alexander Mandel

Kiran Raju Penumacha

Joyce Wei

Peter Zullo

2001 Graduates

Akira Hasegawa

Edward Roques


M.S. in Biological Sciences

2012 Graduates

Andrew Markham

2011 Graduates

Mark Deblois

James Hughes

Sailatha Ravi

Nathan Hsu

Ashita Magal Prakash

Jesse J. Sheehan

2010 Graduates

Megha Kapur

Joseph King
Postgraduate Plans: Teaching life sciences at West Point Military Academy

2009 Graduates

Saksham Chandra
Postgraduate Plans: Ph.D. Program in Statistics at Penn State University

Nicole Marthaler
Postgraduate Plans: Science Writing

Mohammed Qureshi
Postgraduate Plans: Ph.D. Program at Kent State University

2008 Graduates

Margarida Nunes Ferreira Silva Coelho Rodrigues dos Anjos

Dara Brown
Postgraduate Plans: University of Pennsylvania, School of Veterinary Medicine

2007 Graduates

Christopher Fried

2006 Graduates

Yanhua Hu

Arun Krishnaswamy

2005 Graduates

Jeong-Ah Kwon

2004 Graduates

Nicole R. Brandon

2002 Graduates

Sugunda Sharma

2000 Graduates

Lisa Hennen

Postgraduate Plans

42% Industry, Government or Consulting Position (Red), 28% Further Education (Green), 30% Academic Position (Blue)

M.S. in Computational Biology Graduates since 2004 (n=46)

50% Industry, Government or Consulting Position (Red), 37% Further Education (Green), 13% Other (Orange)

M.S. in Biological Sciences Graduates since 2004 (n=8)

Red Industry, Government or
Consulting Position

Blue Academic Position

Green Further Education

Orange Other


University Positions

  • Albert Einstein College of Medicine
  • Brown University
  • California Institute of Technology
  • Carnegie Mellon University
  • Cornell University
  • Duke University
  • Emory University School of Medicine
  • Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
  • Harvard University
  • Johns Hopkins University
  • The Max-Planck Institute
  • Memorial Sloan Kettering
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Princeton University
  • Salk Institute
  • Stanford University
  • Tufts University
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
  • University of California, Davis
  • University of California, San Francisco
  • University of Chicago
  • University of Colorado
  • University of Michigan
  • University of North Carolina
  • University of Texas
  • University of Virginia
  • University of Washington
  • Vanderbilt University
  • Washington University in St. Louis
  • Woods Hole Marine Biology Lab
  • Yale University

Industry Positions

  • Abbott Laboratories
  • Biogen
  • Celerant Consulting
  • Cellomics
  • ID Business Solutions
  • Immunetrics
  • J.Craig Venter Institute
  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • Lucent Technologies
  • Managed Objects
  • Merck & Company, Incorporated
  • Pitney Bowes
  • Precision Therapeutics
  • Roche Pharmaceuticals
  • Shandon Lipshaw
  • Wyeth Laboratories

Government & Private Institutions

  • Johnson Space Center
  • Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse
  • Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases