Nurdan Kuru

Nurdan Kuru is a postdoctoral researcher currently affiliated with the Siepel Lab, focusing on computational evolution, population genomics, and phylogeny-aware algorithm development. She holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Sabancı University, where her research centered on variant effect prediction and co-evolution analysis under the supervision of Dr. İlker Birbil and Dr. Sinan Yıldırım. Prior to joining the Siepel Lab in May 2024, she conducted postdoctoral work in the Adebali Lab at Sabancı University.

Her research interests span computational biology, evolutionary genomics, and the development of tools for analyzing genetic variants and population-level genomic data. Key areas include polygenic risk score prediction using Ancestral Recombination Graphs (ARGs), phylogeny-aware pathogenicity prediction (e.g., PHACTboost), and co-evolutionary dynamics in proteins. Her work bridges algorithmic innovation with practical applications in medical genetics and evolutionary biology.

Nurdan’s publications reflect a focus on algorithm development for genomic analysis, including tools like Phylostat and PHACT, as well as studies on calcium-sensing receptors and drug interaction modeling. She has contributed to scalable data analysis frameworks and privacy-preserving optimization methods in computational biology.