Hirak Sarkar
Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University College of Connected Computing
Nashville-Davidson, Tennessee, United States
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolHirak Sarkar is an Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University and a computational biologist specializing in machine learning for genomics, with 11 years of research and engineering experience. He earned a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Maryland and has held postdoctoral and research roles at Harvard, Rutgers Cancer Institute, and Princeton, leading data science efforts in cancer and spatial transcriptomics. Hirak has driven production-grade bioinformatics tooling—helping build Alevin-fry, Terminus, Pufferfish, and contributions to RapMap/Salmon—demonstrating fluency in Rust and scalable pipeline design. His work bridges statistical method development and practical software engineering, from probabilistic models for transcriptomics to multimodal cancer evolution analyses. Notably, he has translated academic research into funded projects (NIH, CZI) and collaborative tools now used broadly in single-cell analysis. Based in Nashville, he combines deep algorithmic roots with hands-on toolbuilding that accelerates experimental biology.
11 years of coding experience
8 years of employment as a software developer
M.Tech Computer Science, M.Tech Computer Science at Indian Statistical Institute, KolkataBachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) Computer Science, Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) Computer Science at West Bengal University of Technology, KolkataDoctor of Philosophy - PhD Computer Science, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Computer Science at University of MarylandMaster's degree Computer Science, Master's degree Computer Science at Stony Brook University
Bengali, Hindi, English
Stackoverflow
509reputation
38kreached
4answers
12questions
Github Skills (200)
package-management10
python10
seq10
topological-data-analysis10
density-estimation10
transcriptomics10
gene-expression10
transcript10
genomics10
variational-autoencoder10
autoencoder10
single-cell-analysis10
rna-seq10
hash10
bioconda10
Programming languages (13)
Github contributions (5)
COMBINE-lab/quark
Apr 2016 - Mar 2019
Contributions:149 commits, 7 PRs, 34 pushes in 2 years 11 months
semicompressionreference-basedshort
COMBINE-lab/terminus
Feb 2020 - Dec 2021
Contributions:2 releases, 52 commits, 2 PRs in 1 year 10 months
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