Kian H. Kelly, Ph.D

Hi, I’m Kian. I am a Bioinformatics Scientist at Watchmaker Genomics, specializing in the development of novel NGS secondary analysis algorithms for germline and somatic variant detection, with a focus on oncology applications. I design statistically rigorous tools for ultra-low allele frequency variant detection and build production-grade pipelines that translate research algorithms into clinically relevant tools. I also contribute to large-scale, production Nextflow pipelines and perform ad hoc analysis for wet lab scientists.

I completed my PhD at the University of California, Riverside, where I performed large-scale genomic and metagenomic analyses in Python and R, developing computational workflows and statistical approaches for NGS data. My work resulted in multiple publications and focused on understanding microbial diversity through high-throughput sequencing in journals including ISMEJ and New Phytologist (first author).

I earned my BS in Biology from Fort Lewis College and participated in an NSF REU at Cornell University, where I obtained the first cryo-electron micrographs of the plant membrane protein NPF3.

Outside of my scientific work, I serve as a volunteer firefighter and first responder, and spend much of my free time hiking, reading, and building a tiny cabin in the mountains. My career interests lie in bioinformatics engineering and algorithm development for genomic technologies.