I’m a computational biologist, and I apply bioinformatics, genomics, and data science to provide insights and solve problems in biology and human health . Most recently I was a bioinformatics scientist Delfi Diagnostics using machine learning to detect cancer from fragments of cell-free DNA in blood samples.

I have a research background in evolutionary biology and population genetics of humans and disease vectors. In 2020-2022, I was a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Brenna Henn’s Lab in the Department of Anthropology at UC Davis. For my PhD at Yale I studied gene flow and landscape genetics of the dengue mosquito, Ae. aegypti, in North America with Dr. Jeffrey Powell. You can read more about my academic research here.

I’m originally from northern California, where I received my BS and MS in Biology at Stanford University. For my honors thesis, I studied decision-making behavior in the red harvester ant with Dr. Deborah Gordon. After graduation, I worked at NASA Ames with Dr. Lynn Rothschild on a synthetic biology project that was launched on the EuCROPIS satellite mission.

In addition to research, I enjoy teaching and mentoring and participating in science outreach events for the public and to support diversity in science.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evlyn-pless/