Anna Ritz

Anna Ritz is an Associate Professor of Biology at Reed College, part of the Division of Mathematical and Natural Sciences. Her research integrates computational methods with biological systems, focusing on signaling pathways, cancer genomics, and network biology. She earned her B.A. from Carleton College, M.A. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Brown University, and conducted postdoctoral work at Virginia Tech. Ritz develops algorithms for analyzing biological networks, including tools like PathLinker and GraphSpace. Her work bridges computer science and biology, emphasizing interdisciplinary education and mentoring undergraduates in computational research. She holds an NSF CAREER Award and an NCWIT Undergraduate Research Mentor Award. Ritz advises numerous students on projects spanning signaling pathway reconstruction, drug repurposing, and network topology analysis. Her lab also focuses on creating accessible tools for computational biology education and conference participation.

Education:

• B.A., Carleton College (2006)
• M.A. and Ph.D., Brown University Computer Science (2008, 2012)

Research Interests:

Her interdisciplinary work includes computational modeling of biological systems, structural variant analysis in genomes, and network-based disease gene prediction. She explores hypergraphs to better represent signaling pathways and develops methods for drug repurposing using tensor completion (FiT). Recent projects involve undergraduate conference travel grants and tools like Graphery for teaching network algorithms.

Publications and Grants:

Ritz has authored over 30 peer-reviewed articles, including work on tumor evolutionary trees, differentially private ANOVA testing, and metabolic reprogramming in cancer. She leads NSF-funded projects on signaling pathway analysis and collaborates with institutions like OHSU and Virginia Tech. Her grants support undergraduate research in computational biology and systems biology.

Awards and Mentoring:

In addition to her NSF and NCWIT awards, Ritz’s lab hosts travel awards for ACM-BCB conference attendance and manages outreach programs for underrepresented students. She mentors postdocs (e.g., Pramesh Singh) and advises on thesis projects in computational systems biology.

Labs/Teams:

Ritz directs the CompBio Lab at Reed, focusing on algorithm development for biological networks and interdisciplinary collaboration. The lab emphasizes undergraduate research, with projects often leading to conference presentations and publications.