Jacob Marglous
Biography
“As an MD-PhD student, I hope to become a physician-scientist and bridge the gap between research and clinical care. In particular, medicine is filled with lots and lots of data, and I think there is value in learning how to interpret that data responsibly and effectively. Malaria is a new disease for me to learn about, and throughout my PhD I hope I'll continue to broaden my clinical and research horizons by learning analysis skills that will help me make sense of genomic data from both humans and parasites.”
Hometown: Sharon, Massachusetts
Advisor: Dr. Jeff Bailey (Translations Research and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine)
Research Interests: Malaria genetics/genomics, Bayesian statistics, copy number variation, study design
What excites me about my research is that on a basic level, I like math! Whether in population genetics or statistics, I like finding ways to describe phenomena and understand how they work. Using quantitative skills to fight the spread of malaria is a really exciting way to combine these interests with public health.
The most challenging part of doing an MD-PhD is that doing research feels like an extended lesson in dealing with failure. If you knew what you were doing, they wouldn't call it research... But when things do work out it's really exciting!
My favorite part of my graduate program is The culture! Everyone in the program is very down-to-earth and friendly, and I feel like the working environment is unusually collaborative.
After graduate school, I'll complete the last two years of medical school and then a clinical residency and fellowship as I begin to pursue a career as a physician-scientist.
Outside of work, I enjoy cycling, reading, hanging out with my cat, screaming into the void about the Red Sox bullpen.