Biomedical and Translational Informatics Laboratory

 Marylyn D. Ritchie, PhD

 Principal Investigator

  Director, Center for Translational Bioinformatics, Institute for Biomedical Informatics (IBI)
  Associate Director for Bioinformatics, Institute for Biomedical Informatics (IBI)
  Associate Director, Center for Precision Medicine
  University of Pennsylvania

  A301 Richards Building 
  3700 Hamilton Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104

  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

  Curriculum Vitae
  Google Scholar

Marylyn D. Ritchie, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Genetics, Director of the Center for Translational Bioinformatics, Associate Director for Bioinformatics in the Institute for Biomedical Informatics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Ritchie is also Associate Director for the Penn Center for Precision Medicine. Dr. Ritchie is a translational bioinformatics scientist, biomedical informatician, and computational human geneticist with a focus on developing novel approaches for understanding the relationship between our genome and human phenotypes. She has expertise in developing novel bioinformatics tools for complex analysis of big data in genetics, genomics, and clinical databases, in particular in the area of Pharmacogenomics. Some of her methods include Multifactor Dimensionality Reduction (MDR), the Analysis Tool for Heritable and Environmental Network Associations (ATHENA), and the Biosoftware suite for annotating/ filtering variants and genomic regions as well as building models of biological relevance for gene-gene interactions and rare-variant burden/dispersion tests. Dr. Ritchie has over 15 years of experience in the analysis of complex data and has authored over 300 publications.  Dr. Ritchie has received several awards and honors including selection as a Genome Technology Rising Young Investigator in 2006, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in 2010, a KAVLI Frontiers of Science fellow by the National Academy of Science from 2011-2014, and she was named one of the most highly cited researchers in her field by Thomas Reuters in 2014. Dr. Ritchie has extensive experience in all aspects of genetic epidemiology and translational bioinformatics as it relates to human genomics. She also has extensive expertise in dealing with big data and complex analysis including GWAS, next-generation sequencing, data integration of meta-dimensional omics data, Phenome-wide Association Studies (PheWAS), and development of data visualization approaches.

Education

Ph.D. Statistical Genetics
Vanderbilt University
2004

M.S. Applied Statistics
Vanderbilt University
2002

B.S. Biology
University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown
1999

Honors and Awards

1999                       Graduated Summa Cum Laude, University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown
2000- 2002             NIH Breast Cancer Research Training Grant
2001                      Vanderbilt University, Charles R. Park Student Travel Award
2002- 2003             NLM Bioinformatics Training Grant
2002                      Vanderbilt University Graduate School Travel Grant
2003                      Vanderbilt University Dissertation Enhancement Grant
2003                      Vanderbilt University Graduate School Travel Grant
2003                      Vanderbilt University, Charles R. Park Student Travel Award
2004                      Best Paper Award, Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference
2006                      Genome Technology, Rising Young Investigator Award
2010                      Sloan Research Fellow
2011-2014              KAVLI Frontiers in Science Fellow, National Academy of Science
2014                      Member, Thomas Reuters, Most Highly Cited Researchers
2015                      Paul Berg Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Penn State University
2016                      E. Allen Deaver, High Potential Leadership Fellow, Geisinger Health System
2017                      First Place, AMIA “Why Informatics” Video Contest


Memberships in Professional Societies

American Statistical Association (ASA) : Middle TN Chapter Representative (2004-2006)

American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG)

International Neural Network Society (INNS)

International Genetic Epidemiology Society (IGES):  Member of Education Committee (2009-2013)

International Society for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (ISGEC)

International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB)