Nick Sapoval

Nick Sapoval is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Computer Science at Rice University, working under Dr. Luay Nakhleh. His research focuses on computational biology, bridging computer science and evolutionary biology to develop scalable algorithms for analyzing genomic and metagenomic data. Current interests include phylogenetic network inference, cancer evolution modeling, and metagenomic analysis.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Rice University (2024)
• B.Sc. in Computer Science & B.Sc. (Honors) in Mathematics, University of Chicago (2018)

Research Interests:

• Phylogenetics and phylogenomics
• Scalable Bayesian inference methods
• Metagenomic data analysis
• Cancer evolution modeling
• Graph algorithms applied to biological networks

Awards:

• Andrew Ladd Memorial Excellence in Computer Science Graduate Fellowship (2022-2023)

Lab Affiliation: Active contributor to Dr. Luay Nakhleh’s lab, focusing on algorithm development and software implementation for large-scale biological data analysis.