Devika Mahoney-Nair is a researcher with UVA’s Social & Decision Analytics Division, based in Arlington, VA. She serves as a data scientist on this interdisciplinary team of social scientists to discover, ingest, and analyze multiple data sources to address public good questions. Her dynamic perspective blends her background in hard sciences and her diverse experience ranging across the non-profit, government, academic and private sector worlds.
Data Science for Public Good, 2018
Virginia Tech
MS in Data Analytics, 2018
American University
BA in Neuroscience, 2012
Franklin & Marshall College
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Using an accompanying R package (‘arse’) to calculate ARSE, this approach allows researchers a new method of examining resilience for any number of variables of interest.
Using an accompanying R package (‘arse’) to calculate ARSE, this approach allows researchers a new method of examining resilience for any number of variables of interest.
Perspective piece looking at the landscape of whole-genome sequencing and its use in tracking outbreaks.
The Clinic for Special Children (CSC) has integrated biochemical and molecular methods into a rural pediatric practice serving Old Order Amish and Mennonite (Plain) children. Among the Plain people, we have used single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) microarrays to genetically map recessive disorders to large autozygous haplotype blocks (mean = 4.4 Mb) that contain many genes (mean = 79). For some, uninformative mapping or large gene lists preclude disease-gene identification by Sanger sequencing. Seven such conditions were selected for exome sequencing at the Broad Institute; all had been previously mapped at the CSC using low density SNP microarrays coupled with autozygosity and linkage analyses. Using between 1 and 5 patient samples per disorder, we identified sequence variants in the known disease-causing genes SLC6A3 and FLVCR1, and present evidence to strongly support the pathogenicity of variants identified in TUBGCP6, BRAT1, SNIP1, CRADD, and HARS. Our results reveal the power of coupling new genotyping technologies to population-specific genetic knowledge and robust clinical data.