Melinda Yang

PhD Student
University of California, Berkeley
Dept. of Integrative Biology

Website: cteg.berkeley.edu/members/yang.html

What inspired you to start research in computational biology?

I am interested in questions related to human evolutionary biology. When I was in college, I realized that there was so much human genomic data available, but a high demand for ways of analyzing the data. Thus, I started research in computational biology to develop tools to study human genomic data, to answer questions on human evolution.

What are 5 important skills needed for your research?

  • computer scripting
  • biologically/anthropologically motivated questions
  • ability (or motivation) to write clearly
  • working with others
  • ability to think critically

How did you learn the computational and quantitative skills necessary for your work?

I took a short boot camp and otherwise taught myself Python. I made sure to ask my labmates lots of questions to improve. For math and statistics, I took several probability and statistic courses.

What important questions do you address in your research?

Some questions include:

  • What is the nature and timing of Neanderthal admixture with humans?
  • What is the relationship between ancient humans and present day populations?
  • How have human populations changed throughout time?

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