PhD: Angel Garcia De La Garza
Angel Garcia De La Garza, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biostatistics
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
After graduating from the PhD program at Columbia in 2022, I joined the faculty at Albert Einstein College of Medicine as an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics. My collaborators at Einstein are interested in determining risk factors that influence short-term and long-term cognitive function, using data derived from wearable devices that monitor physical activity and sleep, and measure air pollution. We are analyzing these novel high-dimensional data using state-of-the-art statistical techniques to answer questions about the aging brain.
At Columbia, I worked with my dissertation advisor, Dr. Jeff Goldsmith, on developing methods for analyzing functional data. I developed a novel tool for dimension reduction to estimate activation patterns from data from a mouse's brain as it performs a reaching movement. We also worked on a novel test to compare the activation patterns derived from a range of experiments. In both projects, we aimed to help neuroscientists infer how the motor cortex drives movement from neuron-level data. The knowledge and tools I gathered at Columbia generalize to the novel datasets my collaborators at Einstein have been collecting.
I have always been passionate about mental health and cognition. While at Columbia, I worked with Dr. Melanie Wall and used machine learning methods and survey data to identify suicide risk factors. Our work, titled "Identification of Suicide Risk Factors in a National US Survey Using Machine Learning", was published in JAMA Psychiatry last year. We identify novel risk factors for non-fatal suicide attempts, including functional impairment resulting from mental disorders and socioeconomic disadvantage. I also worked with Dr. Christine Mauro and her collaborators on prolonged grief disorder. I am excited to be able to continue a similar path of research in my current role!
Outside of research, I ran the Computing Club meetings - I enjoyed learning new skills and keeping up with the newest computing tools. My favorite experience in the department was being an instructor for BEST (the Biostatistics and Epidemiology Summer Training) Diversity Program teaching Data Science and R. Although our sessions were exclusively virtual due to the pandemic, all of the students were incredibly motivated and excited to learn about Biostatistics. I immensely enjoyed my time at Columbia and the opportunities that exist at the department. I cherish the mentorship I received from all faculty and the camaraderie from my peers.