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Download resumePROFESSIONAL SUMMARY
Computational biologist with a Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School, where I studied how bacterial genomes evolve. I develop algorithms and scientific software to study genomes at scale, with particular interests in pathogen evolution, genomic surveillance, and biosecurity. I am also interested in how AI can accelerate research and make scientific tools more widely accessible. Outside research, I teach, write, take photographs, and organize science-policy programs.
RESEARCH & PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Baym Lab, Harvard Medical School
Oct. 2020 - Apr. 2026Ph.D. Researcher
- Characterized a mechanism of bacterial gene birth; built a structural-variant pipeline to test it across millions of genomes, controlling for sequencing bias.
- Analyzed 1,800+ clinical isolates spanning 140 years to study the frequency and mobility of antibiotic resistance genes.
- Developed phylogeny-colored de Bruijn graphs for evolutionary queries across 1,000+ MRSA genomes.
Asian Development Bank
Summer 2024Generative AI Fellow | Philippines
- Built and deployed a RAG system over approximately 500,000 pages of policy and project documents, including OCR and cloud infrastructure.
- Worked with staff to evaluate and improve response quality and retrieval; conducted adversarial testing and implemented safety guardrails.
- Trained staff, documented the system, and handed the project to the Bank's IT team.
University of Global Health Equity
Spring 2024Research Fellow | Rwanda
Developed a computational biology curriculum, mentored researchers, and contributed to grants for a new research institute.
Inria GenScale, Rennes
Sep. 2023 - Mar. 2024Chateaubriand Fellow | Karel Brinda
Conceived and implemented phylogeny-colored de Bruijn graphs and the prefix-suffix k-mer approach during a six-month research fellowship with Karel Brinda.
Price Lab, Harvard
Jun. - Aug. 2020Rotation Student
Baym Lab, Harvard Medical School
Apr. - Jun. 2020Rotation Student
Sunyaev Lab, Harvard Medical School
Jan. - Apr. 2020Rotation Student
Pinello Lab, Massachusetts General Hospital
Oct. - Dec. 2019Rotation Student
Bafna Lab, UC San Diego
Jun. 2018 - Aug. 2019Computational Research Assistant
Developed a pipeline to identify co-occurring extrachromosomal DNA segments across cancer samples.
Ay Lab, La Jolla Institute for Immunology
Jun. 2016 - Aug. 2019Computational Research Assistant
Led continued development of Fit-Hi-C, originally developed by Ferhat Ay, improving speed, memory use, packaging, and accessibility. Implemented HiCKRy, a Python matrix-balancing tool.
Sunyaev Lab, Harvard Medical School
Summer 2018Computational Research Assistant
Built NovaSplice to predict novel splice sites and Simdigree to simulate pedigrees for studying monogenic and polygenic rare diseases.
Gleeson Lab, UC San Diego
Oct. 2015 - Apr. 2017Biological Research Assistant
Studied WNT signaling and microcephaly using genomic and experimental methods, including WES/WGS and CRISPR.
Sakamoto Lab, Stanford University
Jun. 2014 - Aug. 2015Research Intern
EDUCATION
Harvard Medical School
Spring 2026Ph.D., Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics
Dissertation: Studies on Bacterial Genome Dynamics
Advisor: Michael Baym
University of California, San Diego
Jun. 2019B.S., Bioengineering: Bioinformatics
TEACHING, WRITING & COMMUNITY
- Teaching: Designed and taught introductory bioinformatics in Rwanda and ancient Sanskrit love poetry; served twice as a Harvard Medical School biophysics teaching fellow.
- Science policy: Organized a Washington, D.C. trip for 30+ Harvard graduate students and Policy Bridges, funded by the Harvard President's Building Bridges Fund.
- Mentorship: Expanded UC San Diego's Undergraduate Bioinformatics Club mentorship program fourfold as president.
- Local community: Serve on the Mission Hill Main Streets board, supporting Boston small businesses with technical assistance and grant writing.
- Writing: Write independent essays on place, culture, the environment, and philosophy.
- Life-science companies: Selected for the 50 Years PhD2VC program and performed due diligence on early-stage companies.
AWARDS & SELECTIONS
- 2026Paul Farmer Collaborative Planning Grant for genomic surveillance of surgical site infections in Butaro.
- 2025Selected for the 2025 Asimov Press / Works in Progress Writing Fellowship.
- 2024Harvard President's Building Bridges Fund
- 2023 - 2024Chateaubriand STEM Fellowship
- 2023Best Poster, Harvard Microbial Science Initiative Symposium
- 2022Invited talk, Gordon Research Conference on Drug Resistance
- 2021NSF GRFP Honorable Mention
- 2018Halicioglu Data Science Institute Undergraduate Fellowship
________________________________________________________________________________ Arya Kaul (C) now - forever