Experience & Scholarly Work

Research & Publications

From infant brains to African savannahs to computational genomics — research that spans scales, disciplines, and continents.

Experience

Research Positions

Ten research and clinical roles spanning NeuroAI, genomics, field ecology, public health, and clinical medicine.

SUMMER 2026 Computational Genomics
Statistical Genomics Researcher — Novartis DAx Group, NIBR Cambridge
  • Embedded in the Exploratory Disease Area (DAx) group at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR), Cambridge — one of the world's premier pharmaceutical research organizations
  • Collaborating directly with Faye Zhao (Senior Expert I, Data Science) and Yunyu on GWAS integration, multi-omics data pipelines, and translational biomarker discovery
  • Focus areas: kidney disease, liver fibrosis, and inflammatory pathways — applying statistical genomics and computational methods to identify therapeutic targets and patient stratification signals
  • Building scalable pipelines that connect genetic variation data with multi-omics layers (transcriptomics, proteomics) to inform DAx group disease modeling and drug target prioritization
FEB 2026 — PRESENT Public Health
Lead Data Analyst — Princeton Global Health Program (GHP), NJ Mobile Harm Reduction Study
  • Lead analyst on a 574-response client survey study across 14 New Jersey mobile harm reduction sites — PI: Prof. Heather Howard (SPIA, Director of the State Health Reform Assistance Network); Lead: Dr. Ben Scher
  • Built the full analysis pipeline in R/Python: data cleaning, substance-use and route-of-administration profiling, naloxone access cascades, police-interaction modeling, and housing-instability risk
  • Ran logistic regression, Kruskal–Wallis, and linear models — surfacing a statistically significant racial disparity in naloxone non-carrying (Black/AA vs. White OR = 1.74, p < 0.05) adjusted for age, gender, housing, arrest history, and fentanyl use
  • Produced 28 policy-facing visualizations informing NJ statewide harm-reduction service-delivery recommendations
Princeton GHP ↗
OCT 2024 — JUN 2026 NeuroAI
NeuroAI Research Intern — Hasson Lab, Princeton University
  • Analyzing 1.5M+ hours of infant cognitive data from 15 families in the 1,000 Days (1kD) Project — a $50M NIH-funded longitudinal study of early brain development
  • Applying Python-based deep learning pipelines and ACLEW tier-dependent annotation frameworks to quantify executive function (EF) and self-regulation markers
  • Filtering confounds and standardizing annotation tiers to build scalable cross-family predictive models for infant neurodevelopment
SUMMER 2025 Clinical Research
Research Fellow — Undergraduate Clinical Scholars Program, UPenn Perelman School of Medicine
  • Analyzed 500+ patient microbiome datasets in R, Stata, and Excel to evaluate FMT route of administration for severe recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection
  • Identified 43% improvement in patient outcomes with lower GI (enema) FMT vs. upper GI routes; presented findings to 100+ senior physicians at the UCSP symposium
  • Authoring 5 conference abstracts (2025–2026 cycle) and 2 peer-reviewed manuscripts; completed NIH/NIDDK-backed epidemiology training (NNT, relative risk, incidence models)
MAY 2025 — AUG 2025 AI/ML
AI/ML Developer — PEMM Department, Princeton University
  • Built computer vision pipelines on Princeton's DELLA supercluster to analyze 4,500 Ethiopian paintings and 200,000+ metadata attributes, producing similarity clusters for large-scale art-historical analysis
  • Adapted and fine-tuned BLIP-2, CLIP, and CoCa vision-language models to build a scalable IC|TC classification framework for automated stylistic attribution
JAN 2025 — PRESENT Field Research
Research Assistant — Mpala Research Centre (Grevy's Zebra Project), Princeton
  • Examining flee dynamics of Plains and Grevy's Zebras in response to predation pressure using drone footage captured from ~100m altitude over the Laikipia Plateau, Kenya
  • FAA & Kenya-certified drone pilot; captured 20+ hours of 4K footage during a 3-week field collection sprint
  • Applying DeepLabCut and SLEAP AI to map individual and group-level movement patterns; collaborating with Dr. Craig Marshall and Dr. Isla Duporge on a manuscript for The Naturalist (~June 2026)
MAY 2025 — AUG 2025 Data Analysis
Data Analyst — Project Xenon, AfterQuery Experts
  • Analyzed 100+ clinical and economic datasets in Excel, R, and SQL for downstream decision modeling
  • Built labeled training frameworks that improved AI model task performance to ~80% accuracy via statistical modeling, feature engineering, and 1,000+ quality-controlled annotations
SUMMER 2024 Clinical
Neurology Medical Assistant & Shadowing — Comprehensive Neurology LLC
  • 8-week program, 40 hrs/week; aided 50+ patients/day and managed WC, MVA, NJ Disability, and surgical precertifications using Practice Fusion EHR
  • Shadowed Drs. Pasupuleti & Zhang — observed cases spanning Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Epilepsy, MS, and motor neuron disease; interpreted MRI, EEG, and EMG results
JUN 2023 — AUG 2024 Neuroscience Research
Computational Neuroscience Intern — Devilbiss Lab, Rowan-Virtua School of Translational Medicine
  • Research focused on locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) regulation of neural activity and cognition; used 3-channel EEG to study 8 animal subjects (4 rabbits, 4 rats) with and without TBI
  • Engineered EEG artifact-removal pipelines to clean raw multi-channel recordings — band-pass and 60 Hz notch filtering, Independent Component Analysis (ICA) to isolate and remove ocular, EMG/muscle, and movement artifacts, and threshold-based epoch rejection of saturated segments prior to spectral analysis
  • Measured neural dynamics with norepinephrine, dopamine, and ritalin interventions; analyzed data with MATLAB and SpikeOne bioinformatics software; directed toward SOM/GSBS publication
JUN 2023 — AUG 2023 Biotech R&D
R&D Research Intern — Sea6 Energy Biofuel Company, Bangalore, India
  • Studied Seaweed Carrageenan bioconversion into biopolymers, biostimulants, and platform chemicals alongside a team of PhDs and postdocs
  • Conducted 50+ PCRs for bacterial infection models, HPLC molecular analysis, and evaluated Carrageenan with 5 additives across 9 plant species
SEP 2025 — PRESENT Volunteer
Care Ambassador — Neurology Dept., Princeton Medical Center (Penn Medicine)
  • 150+ volunteer hours; supported nursing workflows, patient interaction, and interdisciplinary clinical teams in a live hospital neurology setting
Scholarly Work

Publications in Progress

Seven manuscripts and abstracts spanning clinical medicine, neuroscience, ecology, genomics, and computational art history — with PDFs and decks available where published.

01
Fecal Microbiota Transplantation Route of Administration and Clinical Outcomes in Recurrent Clostridioides difficile Infection
Donthula A. et al. UPenn Perelman School of Medicine · UCSP 2025–2026 Under Review

Identifying a 43% outcome improvement with lower GI FMT delivery over upper GI routes across 500+ patients. Five national/international conference abstracts and 2 full manuscripts (~2026).

↓ Download PDF
02
Flee Dynamics and Social Stratification in Plains and Grevy's Zebra Under Predation Pressure
Donthula A., Marshall C., Duporge I. The Naturalist · Princeton Mpala Research Centre (~June 2026) In Preparation

20+ hours of 4K drone footage analyzed with DeepLabCut & SLEAP to quantify individual and group movement patterns and interspecific social dynamics in Laikipia, Kenya.

Draft available upon request
03
Optogenetic Sweet Neuron Activation Supports Spatial Place Conditioning in Drosophila melanogaster, with Preliminary Evidence for Goal-Directed Outcome Sensitivity
Donthula A. NEU 350 Independent Project · Princeton University · May 2026 In Preparation

Gr64f-Gal4 > UAS-CsChrimson optogenetic activation of sweet GRNs in a closed-loop V-maze paradigm. Demonstrated place conditioning (PI = +0.34 ± 0.26, ATR+ vs ATR–, Mann–Whitney U, p = 0.057, r = 0.83) and outcome sensitivity consistent with goal-directed control.

↓ Download GitHub ↗
04
Predictive Modeling of Executive Function Development from Longitudinal Infant Audiovisual Data
Hasson Lab, Princeton University (Donthula A., contributing author) 1,000 Days Project · $50M NIH-funded Program In Preparation

Deep learning pipeline analyzing 1.5M+ hours of infant behavioral and acoustic data to identify early markers of executive function and self-regulation across 15 longitudinal family datasets.

Manuscript in progress
05
LC-NE Regulation of Neural Plasticity and Cognitive Recovery in Traumatic Brain Injury Animal Models
Devilbiss Lab, Rowan-Virtua SOM (Donthula A., contributing author) SOM/GSBS · Rowan University In Preparation

EEG study of locus coeruleus-norepinephrine modulation in 8 animal subjects (4 experimental groups) with and without TBI; norepinephrine, dopamine, and Ritalin interventions analyzed via MATLAB/SpikeOne.

Manuscript in progress
06
Effects of Monoclonal and Polyclonal Antibodies on the Active Immune System
Donthula A. Antibody Society Non-Profit · Research Abstract Research Abstract

1,500-word working paper on comparative antibody mechanisms; biological process diagrams developed in BioRender software.

07
Automated Stylistic Attribution of Ethiopian Religious Paintings Using Vision-Language Models
Donthula A., Belcher W. et al. Princeton PEMM · DELLA Supercluster · 2025 In Preparation

IC|TC dual classification framework applying BLIP-2, CLIP, and CoCa to 4,500 Ethiopian paintings and 200,000+ metadata attributes for automated stylistic attribution (First vs. Second Gondar styles). Institutional research recap available below.

↓ Download PDF PEMM ↗