People
About Kit
In July 2020, I started as an Assistant Professor at UCSD in the Division for Biomedical Informatics, Department of Medicine. I am also an Associate Member of the Cancer Control Program at UCSD Moores Cancer Center. Previous to this, I held a Medical Research Council Rutherford Fellowship at Barts Cancer Institute in London UK, where I began as a postdoc in Prof Trevor Graham’s Evolution and Cancer lab in 2016. I was a Gastroenterology Research Fellow in the University of Washington Department of Medicine working with Dr. John Inadomi before moving to the UK. I received my PhD in Applied Mathematics from UW in 2015, working with advisor Dr. Georg Luebeck at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and obtained a BS in Mathematics from UCLA in 2010.
Contact
Email: kcurtius@health.ucsd.edu
Address: Division of Biomedical Informatics, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093
Lab members
Graduate students
Caitlin Guccione
Caitlin is currently a Ph.D. student in the Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (BISB) program co-advised by Dr. Kit Curtius and Dr. Rob Knight. She graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 2020 with an undergraduate degree in applied mathematics and computer science along with a Masters in applied mathematics. Her current research is focused in the intersection between the human microbiome and cancer. In her free time she enjoys surfing and open water swimming. Email contact: cguccion@ucsd.edu
Brian Johnson
Brian is a Ph.D. student in the Biomedical Informatics (BMI) program. He graduated from Rutgers University in 2020 with a B.S. in Physics. His current research interests are wide-ranging, but generally focus on analyzing multi-omic data to improve detection and treatment of cancer. His current work focuses on the phylogenetics of neutrally evolving tumors. In his free time, he enjoys surfing and running. Email contact: bdj001@ucsd.edu
Research data analyst
Cindy Huang
Cindy (Xinyi) Huang is a statistician who currently works in Dr. Kit Curtius’s team, collaborating closely with Dr. Samir Gupta’s team. She received her undergraduate degree in Statistics from UC San Diego in 2021 and completed her Master’s degree in Biostatistics from the same university in 2023. With her expertise in statistical methods and their applications, Cindy is actively involved in cancer-related research, particularly in analyzing VA databases. In her free time, Cindy enjoys cooking, bird watching, and playing the traditional Chinese instrument, the Erhu. Email contact: xih057@health.ucsd.edu.
Software engineer
Tyler Bath
Tyler is a software engineer at the UCSD Division of Biomedical Informatics who works with Dr. Kit Curtius’s team. He recieved a B.S. in Computer Science from UCSD in 2014. His recent research focuses on protecting patient privacy, distributed analytics, and automation of pipelines and workflows via intuitive web interfaces. His free time is spent hiking with his dog, gardening, or diy hobbies from woodworking to 3d printing.
Undergraduate researchers
Sandrine Amudhan
Sandrine is an undergraduate student at UCSD, majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology. Her interest is in Bioinformatics/Bioengineering, and hoping to focus her graduate studies on these fields. She is currently involved in Dr. Curtius’ research analyzing data to study the relationship between inflammatory bowel disease cancer and genetics to improve detection of IBD cancer. In her free time, she enjoys dancing and reading. Email contact: samudhan@ucsd.edu
Summer research interns
Busra Coskun
Busra is a rising senior at Lower Merion High School just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is working with Dr. Curtius’ lab through the NIH Short-Term Research Experience Program to Unlock Potential (STEP-UP) program. She is interested in bioinformatics, computational biology, and data science. Busra previously participated in research projects regarding immunology at the University of Pennsylvania and antimicrobial resistance at Rice University. She was able to publish her award-winning research paper in the conference proceedings of the International Young Researchers’ Conference. Besides membership to several clubs, she is the founding president of her school’s Ace Scholars club, which facilitates interactions between high school students and college professors. Currently, Busra is studying inflammatory bowel disease genetics using next-generation sequencing. In her free time, you can find her reading, drawing, or playing badminton.
Openings
Please contact Dr. Curtius by email if you are a PhD student in the UCSD Bioinformatics & Systems Biology program who is interested in doing a research rotation, or if you are (or are soon to be) a doctoral graduate (PhD and/or MD) who is interested in applying to an open postdoctoral position on our team. I am happy to discuss available opportunities and potential projects, and to answer questions.
QCC Lab Alumni
Sami Ryan (Summer DBMI Intern 2022): current undergraduate at UCLA
Phillip Pham (UCSD STARS Summer Intern 2021): currently PhD student and Fullbright scholar
McKenna Johnson (Undergraduate researcher 2020-2022): currently Software Engineer at Resilience