Joe Wirth
Research Scientist II at Amazon
Seattle, Washington, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolJoe Wirth is an interdisciplinary research scientist specializing in computational biology, bioinformatics, and microbiology, currently working at Amazon after a PhD in Microbiology from UGA. He brings deep hands-on experience building reproducible genomics pipelines (Snakemake, PySpark, Databricks) and applying machine learning to large biological datasets, with real-world public-health impact as the primary bioinformatician during a recent measles outbreak at the CDC. Joe has authored multiple first-author papers and book chapters and develops open-source tools for microbial genomics, including software to detect horizontal gene transfer and improve taxonomic placement. His background uniquely combines wet-lab molecular genetics, isotope-labeling chemistry, and analytical methods with advanced computational skills and teaching experience, enabling him to translate complex biological questions into scalable, production-ready analyses.
4 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Microbiology, General, 4.00, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Microbiology, General, 4.00 at University of Georgia - Franklin College of Arts and SciencesUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Github Skills (48)
package-management10
conda10
bioinformatics10
bioconda10
bacteria9
gwas8
genome7
genomics7
open-access6
pan6
mer6
journal6
academia5
creative-commons5
scientific-publications5
Programming languages (7)
Github contributions (5)
dr-joe-wirth/primerForge
Jan 2024 - Mar 2025
Contributions:29 releases, 3 reviews, 4 PRs in 1 year 1 month
dr-joe-wirth/phantasm
Feb 2022 - Dec 2022
Contributions:20 releases, 194 commits, 258 pushes in 10 months
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