Steven Smeal, a recent graduate of the Joint Carnegie Mellon-University of Pittsburgh PhD Program in Computational Biology (CPCB), reflects on the graduate school experiences that have helped to jumpstart his career.  

Before enrolling in CPCB, Smeal was working at a Pittsburgh-based company that builds mechanistic models to simulate phase three clinical trials for pharmaceuticals. During this time, he recognized the value of advanced quantitative training and sought to deepen his expertise, particularly in machine learning. The CPCB program was an ideal environment to expand his technical skill set and advance his research capabilities within a strong local academic community. 

“Machine learning was becoming increasingly popular, and this program seemed like a good place to learn more about how machine learning could be used in biology,” Smeal said. 

Smeal’s coursework supported his research goals. His favorite class was Scalable Machine Learning with Associate Professors David Koes and Maria Chikina. “The information I learned there I could apply to my job and my research,” Smeal said. “It gave me the tools needed to not just understand an algorithm in terms of theory, but also how to apply them to a real problem in computational biology.” 

Outside of coursework, Smeal had the opportunity to join Associate Professor Robin Lee’s lab. There, he applied his machine learning knowledge to a wet lab environment. Smeal’s research focused on building a mechanistic model for the activation of NF-κB protein complexes. 

Graduate school was a busy time in Smeal’s life. While working on his PhD, he also became a father and welcomed two daughters into his family. His routine changed as he took on caregiving responsibilities. Smeal’s family and his mentor Robin Lee both helped him to deal with these new challenges and complete all the requirements for his PhD. 

Now that Smeal has earned his diploma, he has started a position as a postdoctoral associate at Carnegie Mellon University in Jonathan Henninger’s lab. One of his first projects will involve studying protein co-localization dynamics within transcriptional condensates by endogenously tagging fluorescent proteins using CRISPR-based gene editing techniques. 

“I’m excited to do that, because it’s something I wanted to do during my PhD but never got the chance to. It feels like a full circle moment to get to do it now,” Smeal said. 

He leaves students with one last piece of advice before he leaves for new adventures. “Write a little bit every day,” Smeal said. “Try to find the time to write incrementally throughout a project instead of doing it all at the end. That would make the process of writing papers much less stressful.”