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Siddhartha J

- Research Program Mentor

PhD candidate at Princeton University

Expertise

Mathematical Biology, Theoretical Biophysics

Bio

I am a graduate student studying in the Princeton Molecular Biology program with a focus on biophysics. My work focuses on the downstream consequences of signaling dynamics on gene regulation. My interests are chiefly in experimental and computational cellular biophysics, but I am also interested in questions concerning evolution, mathematical modeling of biological systems, and soft condensed matter. Before grad school, I graduated from Harvard University in 2016 majoring in chemistry, physics, and math with a minor in molecular and cellular biology. Outside of the lab and away from the computer, I enjoy listening to music, cooking, playing tennis, and reading anything I can get my hands on.

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Cellular automata rulesets towards complexity

Cellular automata have been used to model a number of processes in biology, but have not been thoroughly explored for their use in understanding robustness and regeneration, an important set of biological problems. We will use an existing neural net setup that "learns" cellular automata rules for recreating images, as a way of understanding the rules that give rise to robust and reproducible structures in fractal space.

Gene regulatory networks, adaptation, and dynamics

A number of gene regulatory networks, or GRNs, have been found in biology that are capable of exhibiting complex signal processing properties. We will investigate the ability of different GRNs to process complex signaling behaviors, and assess their ability to optimize their accuracy and energy usage.

ND Tic-tac-toe: questions in positional game theory

Positional game theory deals with games such as tic-tac-toe and connect four where the goal is to connect points in space, taking turns with your opponent. While our standard 2D tic-tac-toe has been 'solved', a lot of questions remain about the solvability and statistics of tic-tac-toe in higher dimensions, and with the variants on the game that come with these dimensions. We will explore some of these questions together, and try to figure out winning strategies for weird and wacky multidimensional games!

Coding skills

Matlab, Python

Languages I know

Spanish

Teaching experience

Mentored high school students through the Research Science Institute (MIT). Mentored undergraduates students working towards senior theses at Princeton.

Credentials

Education

Harvard University
BA Bachelor of Arts (2016)
Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, minor in Molecular and Cellular Biology
Princeton University
PhD Doctor of Philosophy candidate
Molecular Biology

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