Joseph Burns

- Worked as a technical lead to translate business needs into data engineering designs, and mentor teams on technical execution. Leveraged Python, Spark, and Palantir Foundry to build, test, and document big data pipelines and to prototype dashboards. - Led work stream to design and implement a pipeline for integrating, transforming, and organizing data for highly visible public reports. Used Spark and Python to develop reproducible data transformations and Palantir Foundry to evaluate all incoming and finalized datasets. The pipeline allowed clients to easily assess data of interest as well as rapidly update data for future iterations of the reports.

- Using stakeholder interviews, data architecture research, and retrospective analyses, documented a data discovery framework to guide future VA market assessments. Documentation broke down the assessment into several categories of key analytic questions and outlined the primary data metrics and sources needed to answer those questions. - Led the tracking and analysis of high volumes of healthcare data for the market assessment placemats and helped design and build the concurrent PowerBI dashboards. This allowed leadership to easily evaluate important market data to aid in decision making. - Worked with subject matter experts to evaluate, curate, and document market recommendations for nearly 300 VA facilities. Assessed key demand, access, and capacity data to ensure recommendations aligned with both individual facility and overall market needs, strategies, and capabilities.

Studied the role of phospholipase C in regulating keratinocyte migration during wound healing. Used genetic perturbation to determine how phospholipase C isoforms differentially affect bulk keratinocyte migration speeds in response to growth factor presentation. Identified the effects of phospholipase C and protein kinase C chemical inhibition on keratinocyte migration and morphology.

Studied the interaction between transcription factors NRF2, p53 and JUND in breast epithelial cells and how they affect gene regulation and breast tumorigenesis. Developed a pipeline using CellProfiler and MATLAB to identify local niches of NRF2 stabilization in MCF10A-5E 3D spheroids and pubertal murine mammary glands. Quantified variations in abundance of transcripts important in triple-negative breast cancer due to genetic perturbations of NRF2, p53 and JUND. Elucidated the interaction between NRF2 and cell cycle inhibitor, p21. Helped develop a deterministic mass action kinetic model of the NRF2-p53-p21 axis using first order ordinary differential equations to model transcriptional induction and Hill equations to empirically model protein interactions and binding kinetics.

Served as an editor and science specialist for a multidisciplinary research journal run by the Undergraduate Research Network at the University of Virginia.

Developed marketing strategies and created custom graphics for advertising student-led research projects. Helped build a website and social media presence for engaging with current members and broader scientific community. Organized outreach events, seminars, and conferences including a multi-day symposium dedicated to renewable energy.

Research Assistant in Dr. Pamela Kreeger's lab and Dr. Kristyn Masters' lab.

Undergraduate Researcher in Dr. Kevin Janes' lab