People > Faculty > Professors & Lecturers
 |
Kay C. Wiese, Associate ProfessorArea: Bioinformatics, Evolutionary Computation and Softcomputing,
Intelligent Systems and Optimization, Visualization
Office:SFU Surrey 4174 |
Biography
Education
- Certificate in Bioinformatics, Canadian Genetic Diseases Network, University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, and University of New Brunswick, 2001
- Ph.D., Computer Science, University of Regina, Canada, 1999
- M.Sc., Department of Computer Science, Universität des Saarlandes, Germany, 1995
- B.Sc., Department of Computer Science, Universität des Saarlandes, Germany, 1991
- B.Math, Department of Mathematics, Universität des Saarlandes, Germany, 1991
Work History
- Associate Professor, School of Computing Science, Simon Fraser University Surrey, August 2004 - present
- Director, InfoNet Media Center, funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), ($987K), Simon Fraser University, May 2002 – present
- Associate Faculty Member, CIHR/MSFHR Strategic Training Program in Bioinformatics
- Assistant Professor, Information Technology, Simon Fraser University Surrey, May 2002 – July 2004
- Assistant Professor, Information Technology, Technical University of British Columbia, June 2000 - May 2002
- Adjunct Faculty Member, Bioinformatics, Empirical and Theoretical Algorithms Lab (BETA Lab), Dept. of Computer Science, University of British Columbia, 2000 - present
- Consulting Research Scientist and Software Developer, Clinical Research Department, Regina Health District and Department of Psychology, University of Regina, 1996 - 2000
- Associate Member, Lab for Computational Intelligence, Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia, 1999 - 2000
- Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, 1999 - 2000
- Academic Advisor, Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, 2000
Research Interests
-
I would describe myself as an algorithms researcher and bioinformatician with an interest in data visualization. My current research focuses on the development of new algorithms for the prediction of the structure of bio-molecules, particularly RNA, and the development of tools and technologies for visualization and comparison of structures.
Over the years, I have worked successfully in the area of scientific computing, computer algebra, massively parallel computing, deterministic and non-deterministic algorithms including optimization and artificial intelligence. The current focus of my research is in the area of combinatorial optimization and visualization for bioinformatics. The software rnapredict, developed in my lab and based on evolutionary computation, has been demonstrated to predict certain known RNA secondary structures with very high accuracy and to have a higher prediction accuracy on certain short and medium length sequences than mfold, the current benchmark for RNA secondary structure prediction.
While working with Biologists and Biochemists, I have learned that visual representation of vast amounts of data is of great importance, especially in the structure domain. In conjunction with my research group, I have developed web based visualization tools for RNA structure visualization including pseudo-knots as well as tools for visual comparison of structures using new representations. In addition, I am experimenting with new display technologies including stereoscopic 3D immersive environments. The software jViz.Rna, developed in my lab, has certain benefits when compared to existing visualization tools. These include the ability to draw pseudo-knots in classical RNA structure diagrams, visually compare two structures, include both quantitative and qualitative assessments, support a wide range of input and output formats, and to produce a dynamic visual output that can be further manipulated by the user. The software jViz.Rna is freely available for academic purposes from http://jviz.research.iat.sfu.ca/.