Lab retreat 2026 concluded a highly productive academic year

Today we celebrate an extremely productive academic year of 2025-2026 in a very satisfying way: a lab retreat with axes and knives throwing! It turns out that throwing axes is not that different from doing popgen, both requiring patience, calibration, and occasionally adjusting aims after unexpected outcomes.

This has been an exceptionally productive year for our lab:
1) Manuscripts & Preprints

• We submitted two papers (both now on bioRxiv):
  • A machine learning framework (DominL) to infer recessive regions in the human genome
  • A simulation-based framework to understand how admixture shapes trait architecture and GWAS performance
• We have three (!!!) additional preprints on the way - please stay tuned!

2) Grants & Training

• Michelle Kim submitted two NIH postdoctoral grants
• Autumn Allemon successfully completed her Master’s thesis

3) Conference Presence

• Over the last year, our lab made strong presence at RECOMB, SMBE, ASHG, Midwest PopGen, ProbGen, and the upcoming PEQG

4) Lab Growth

• We also had the bittersweet moments of seeing trainees move on to exciting next steps:
  • Two Biostatistics MS students, Lingxuan Zhu and Jiongxuan Yang, who made major contributions to the DominL project both have successfully transitioned into PhD programs.
  • Autumn Allemon, who has been with us since 2023, is about to complete her MS in Human Genetics
• At the same time, we’re excited to welcome new members:
  • Shuoyuan Gao recently joined us from the Biostatistics MS program and will be working as a Research Associate over the next year

Looking ahead, we are continuing to grow and are actively recruiting PhD students and postdocs who are excited about population genetics and developing new methods to understand human evolution and complex traits in the context of admixture and selection dynamics.

I feel incredibly blessed to work with such a talented and driven group of people. Our science is exciting, but it’s really the people that make it truly meaningful. Cheers to another year of great science and working together!

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