QuantSci Core KCMC

The mission of the QS Core is to (1) provide methodological expertise and analytical services to investigators, (2) train HIV/AIDS investigators in established and novel quantitative methods, and (3) catalyze interdisciplinary collaborations and new method development. We suggest ways to engage with QS Core faculty and staff in each of these areas below but are always happy to discuss new ways to serve the CFAR community, so contact us if you have any questions. Services are provided at no charge to early career investigators without major grant funding (e.g. R01), and our faculty and staff will also serve as co-investigators on grant proposals with established investigators.

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Provide methodological expertise and analytical services to investigators. QS Core faculty and staff have expertise in clinical biostatistics, genomics, systems immunology, machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), mathematical modeling, epidemiology, and social informatics. These serve CFAR members via:

  • Consultations for a study or grant proposal, manuscript, or poster. Typical services offered include experimental and observational study design, sample size calculation, statistical analysis and visualization, and bioinformatics data processing and analysis.
  • Outreach to recipients of Developmental Core pilot and micro grants.
  • Collaborative research where CFAR faculty and staff have effort on a grant.
  • Dedicated staff effort allocated to other CFAR Cores and Scientific Working Groups.

Train HIV/AIDS investigators in established and novel quantitative methods. Training and education programs led by the QS Core include:

  • Muti-day workshops in data science and R programming, statistical analysis, and bioinformatics.
  • Immunology for Quants seminar series that provides tutorials at the intersection of immunology and quantitative science.
  • Mentored Scholars program for long-term (12-24 months) quantitative mentoring for HIV/AIDS early career researchers.
  • We also run international training programs in quantitative HIV/AIDS — please contact us if you know of such opportunities and would like to collaborate with the QS Core to develop a custom training program.

Catalyze interdisciplinary collaborations and develop new methods. QS Core faculty have active methods research programs— please contact us if you have a project that could benefit from interdisciplinary collaboration in any of the following:

  • Mathematical modeling of immune-virus dynamics, including spatiotemporal modeling (Cliburn Chan).
  • Pragmatic clinical trial design, including cluster randomized trials (Hrishikesh Chakraborty).
  • Bioinformatics for the analysis of sequencing data, including microbiome analysis (Josh Granek).
  • Analysis of complex immune data, including biomarker discovery and predictive modeling (Lynn Lin).
  • Use of electronic health record (EHR) and geospatial data, social determinants of health (SDOH), environmental, and climate data for HVI/AIDS research, including health disparity research, epidemiologic methods and observational study design (Nrupen Bhavsar).
  • Applications of deep learning and generative AI for complex assay data (Lynn Lin), metathetical models of viral and immune dynamics (Cliburn Chan), or geospatial population-based studies (Nrupen Bhavsar).

The CFAR Quantitative Core comprises a team of four PhD-level Biostatisticians, one Masters-level Statistician, and one Systems Programmer. Dr. Richard Barfield helps oversee the group and works with investigators on a variety of collaborative projects. Dr. Angel Davalos has expertise in Bayesian models and multivariate data analysis and works within CHSI and CFAR. Dr. Kayla Kilpatrick specializes in causal inference and clinical trials. Dr. Sophia Waymyers works on observational and clinical trial. Tyler Schappe brings expertise in single-cell sequencing and other omics data. Scott White is a systems programmer with expertise in flow cytometry and software engineering projects.

Quantitative Methods in HIV/AIDS – R25 Training Grant

Immunology for Quants (I4Q) Seminars