University of British Columbia, Fall 2017 - Present
Pursuing a PhD in Bioinformatics, Advised by Dr. Sara Mostafavi and Dr. Jessica Dennis
Carnegie Mellon University, Class of 2017
BS in Computational Biology, School of Computer Science & Mellon College of Science
Fall 2018 - Winter 2019 Course Assistant BIOF 540, University of British Columbia
** **Role: Revising course materials and running tutorial sections for the statiscal
methods for high dimensional biology course at the University of British Columbia
Supervised by: Sara Mostafavi, Bioinformatics, CMMT (saram@stat.ubc.ca)
Spring 2020 - Present, Graduate Student Mostafavi and Dennis Lab
** **“Sex-Specific Regulatory Effects in Placenta”
Interests: Methylation QTL analysis, TWAS
Advised by:
Sara Mostafavi, UBC Statistics, Bioinformatics, CMMT (saram@stat.ubc.ca)
Jessica Dennis, UBC Medical Genetics, BCCHRI (jessica.dennis@bcchr.ca)
Fall 2017 - Spring 2020, Graduate Student Mostafavi Lab
** **“Causal Mediation of Multiple Genotype Effects in Multi-Omic Data”
Interests: Integration of Epigenetic, Genetic, and Transcriptional Information
Advised by:
Sara Mostafavi, UBC Statistics, Bioinformatics, CMMT (saram@stat.ubc.ca)
May - August 2018, NSERC-CREATE Fellowship, Kaufer lab, UC Berkeley
** **“Joint Modelling of Rat Behavior and Oligodendrocyte Formation in Hippocampus, with Insight into Genomic ”
Advised by:
Daniela Kaufer, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute (danielak@berkeley.edu)
Summer 2016 - Spring 2017, Research Assistant, Carnegie Mellon University
“Maximum Parsimony Phylogenies using Generalized Buneman Pruning,”
Advised by:
Russell Schwartz, Dept. of Computational Biology (russells@andrew.cmu.edu)
Summer 2015 - Fall 2015, Researcher CMU iGEM
“Carnegie Mellon iGEM Biosensor Emission Analysis Machine (BEAM),”
Advised by:
Cheryl Telmer, MBIC, Carnegie Mellon University (ctelmer@andrew.cmu.edu)
Fall 2014, Research Assistant, Carnegie Mellon University
“Unmixing Bulk Tumor Data with Simplical Complexes”
Advised by:
Russell Schwartz, Dept. Computational Biology (russells@andrew.cmu.edu)
Fall 2013 - Spring 2014, Student Researcher, Carnegie Mellon University
“HHMI SEAPHAGES Program”,
Advised by:
Maggie Braun, Dept. Biology (mabraun@andrew.cmu.edu)
Javier Lopez, Dept. Biology (jlaa@andrew.cmu.edu)
Joel McManus, Dept. Biology (mcmanus@andrew.cmu.edu)
Wright, Galen E. B., Nicholas S. Caron, Bernard Ng, Lorenzo Casal, **William Casazza**, Xiaohong Xu, Jolene Ooi, et al. “Gene Expression Profiles Complement the Analysis of Genomic Modifiers of the Clinical Onset of Huntington Disease.” Human Molecular Genetics. https://doi.org/10.1093/hmg/ddaa184.
Patrick E, Taga M, Ergun A, Ng B, **Casazza W**, et al. (2020) Deconvolving the contributions of cell-type heterogeneity on cortical gene expression. PLOS Computational Biology 16(8): e1008120. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008120
Long, Kimberly L. P., Jocelyn P. Breton, Linda Chao, Siamak Sorooshyari, Kelsey Hu, Anjile An, Yurika Kazama, **et al**. “Region-Specific Maladaptive Myelination Contributes to Differential Susceptibility to Stress-Induced Avoidance and Acute Threat Reactivity in Humans and Rodents.” Biological Psychiatry 87, no. 9, Supplement (2020): S88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2020.02.247.
Ng, Bernard, **William Casazza**, Ellis Patrick, Shinya Tasaki, Gherman Novakovsky, Daniel Felsky, Yiyi Ma, et al. “Using Transcriptomic Hidden Variables to Infer Context-Specific Genotype Effects in the Brain.” The American Journal of Human Genetics 105, no. 3 (September 5, 2019): 562–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2019.07.016.
[Klyczek, Karen K., et al. “Tales of Diversity: Genomic and Morphological Characteristics of Forty-Six Arthrobacter Phages.” PloS One, vol. 12, no. 7, July 2017, p. E0180517.](http://paperpile.com/b/VN1328/fven)
Hwang, Yih-Chii. "A Cloud based Framework for Benchmarking Variant Calling Tools for High throughput Sequencing Data in the Human Genome." Poster presented at: ICBI symposium. 27 October 2017. Georgetown University
Open review article: Asthana, Ruchi et al. “IGEM RESEARCH ARTICLE: Development and Characterization of Fluorescent and Luminescent Biosensors for Estrogenic Activity.” PLOS Collections, 24 Aug. 2016, blogs.plos.org/collections/igem-research-article-001/.
NSERC-CREATE Scholarship Award, 2017-2018
UBC Faculty of Science Graduate Award, 2017-2021
2nd Place HackSeq 2017 UBC, 2017
HHMI Summer Undergraduate Research Grant, 2014
Scientist Intern at DNAnexus Inc., May 2017-August 2017
** **“Automatic Cloud-Based Benchmarking of Structural Variant Calling Software.”
Supervised by:
Andrew Carroll (acarroll@dnanexus.com)
Yih-Chii Hwang (yihhwang@dnanexus.com)
Volunteering
Let’s talk Science: Python Coding Workshop, Summer 2019
BC Children’s Research Open House, Fall and Spring 2018, Spring 2019
Carnegie Mellon Global Medical Brigades, 2013-2014
Extracurriculars
Vancouver Bioinformatics User Group (VanBUG) Organizing Committee, Fall 2018-Present
Trainee Omics Group (TOG) Study Group Lead, Spring 2019-Present
Integration of Multi-omic Data
Complex Traits
Gene by Environment Interaction
Sex-Specific Quantitative Trait Loci
Causal Inference in Observational Data
Dr. Sara Mostafavi , Room 3021, Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, 950 West 28th Avenue, Vancouver, BC V5Z 4H4 Canada, 604-875-3802, saram@stat.ubc.ca
Dr. Jessica Dennis, Room 371A, BC Childrens Hospital Research Institute, 920 West 28th Avenue, Vancouver, BC V5Z 4H4 Canada, 604-875-7871, jessica.dennis@bcchr.ca
Dr. Russell Schwartz, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Mellon Institute 654B, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA, 412-268-3971, russells@andrew.cmu.edu