Avanti Shrikumar

I'm a Ram and Vijay Shriram Data Science Fellow at Stanford Data Science, where I work with Professor Karen Casciotti in the Earth Systems Science Department. My research is on developing and applying data science techniques to improve our understanding of oceanic nutrient cycling. The oceans show immense promise in mitigating and adapting to anthropogenic climate change. For example, seaweed cultivation could serve as a source of biofuel in countries where land-based cultivation of biomass is infeasible. Similarly, one of the few promising strategies for large-scale removal of atmospheric CO2 is "ocean alkalinization", which lowers the ocean’s equilibrium CO2 to drive absorption of atmospheric CO2 into the ocean. Implementing such strategies requires a thorough understanding of the processes governing nutrient distributions in the oceans. The goal of my research is to improve our modeling and understanding of these processes.

I completed my B.S. in Computer Science and Molecular Biology from MIT in 2013 and took a gap year to work on the healthcare team of Palantir Technologies before beginning my PhD in the Computer Science department at Stanford. During my PhD, I worked with Professor Anshul Kundaje to develop machine learning methods, with a focus on deep learning, model interpretation, and applications to regulatory genomics. I grew up in Bangalore, India.