About Me

My name is Benjamin D. Lee. I’m currently an NIH Oxford-Cambridge scholar working on my doctorate at Oxford University and at the National Institutes of Health. More specifically, I am jointly supervised by Eugene Koonin of the National Center for Biotechnology Information and Peter Simmonds of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Medicine. My primary interests are in computational biology, virology, evolutionary computing. Right now, I’m researching the evolution and diversity of viroids and viroid-like RNA agents by using computational methods to identify and analyze them. At heart, I’m a software engineer with a passion for research. Previously, I studied computer science at Harvard and did biodefense research at In-Q-Tel’s Lab41 for three years. I also spent a year in Harvard Medical School’s Church lab working on robotic chemistry. For more information about the work I’ve done (all of which is open source), take a look at my GitHub and published papers.

Here are some of my favorite programming tools:

• Python, TypeScript, Nim, and Rust
• Web development with React, RedwoodJS, and Tailwind CSS
• Typesetting with $\LaTeX$, Pandoc, and Markdown

Beyond programming, I also enjoy listening to audiobooks (mostly nonfiction and sci-fi), watch collecting, and ham radio.