BE/PICS Joint Seminar: Uma Balakrishnan and Kunal Poorey, Sandia National Laboratories

Dr. Uma Balakrishnan has a wealth of experience with over 30+ published journal articles and a portfolio of more than 20+ conference presentations and invited talks. Her contributions span various domains, including inventing a higher-order numerical scheme for hydraulic stimulation at Halliburton, which led to a patent application for enhanced convergence accuracy, targeted drug delivery, instabilities of free surface flows and multiphase flows, spin coating and enhanced geothermal systems. Currently at Sandia National Laboratories, she actively engages in cutting-edge research, delving into credibility of scientific machine learning, dimensionality reduction, turbulence closures, transfer learning and the development of anomaly detection systems for pandemic outbreaks.

Kunal Poorey is a seasoned computational biologist and data scientist with over 15 years of experience in bioinformatics and applied data science. He holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics from the University of Virginia. Currently, he serves as a Senior Member of R&D Staff at Sandia National Laboratories, specializing in GenAI, AI/ML, functional genomics, and metagenomics. Kunal has led multiple LDRD projects, developing advanced machine learning tools for biosecurity, pandemic prediction, and antibiotic resistance characterization. He also leads machine learning tasks for the DOE BETO DISCOVR project, pioneering methods for early detection of crop failure biomarkers. His work extends to creating predictive tools for material and chemical discovery, notably contributing to the NA-115 Accelerated Material Discovery initiative. Kunal’s expertise in omics data analysis has resulted in numerous high-profile publications and presentations. Additionally, he has developed novel bioinformatics tools for CRISPR guide optimization and parallel computing. As a mentor, Kunal has guided many interns, post-doctoral researchers, and technical staff, showcasing his commitment to fostering the next generation of scientists.