assis group

Raquel Assis, Principal Investigator

Raquel received a B.S. in Psychology and Zoology from the University of Florida in 2006 and a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from the University of Michigan in 2011. She completed an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley in 2013, joined the Department of Biology at Penn State as faculty in 2014, and moved to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University in 2019. Her research focuses on developing novel methods to uncover connections between genotype and phenotype.

Contact: rassis@fau.edu

Zach Cohen, Postdoctoral Researcher

Zach received a B.S. in Biology from the University of Florida in 2012, an M.S. in Entomology from Cornell University in 2015, and a Ph.D. in Entomology from the University of Wisconsin in 2021. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) from 2021 to 2025 and joined the Assis and DeGiorgio groups as a postdoctoral researcher in Fall 2025.

Contact: TBD

Perry LaBoone, Ph.D. Student in Computer Science

Perry received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida in 1979, an M.S. in Computer Engineering from Florida Atlantic University in 1986, an MBA from the University of North Florida in 1994, and an MAcc from the University of North Florida in 1999. He is also a registered Professional Engineer and a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). He joined the Assis group in 2023.

Contact: plaboone@fau.edu

Ksenia Macias Calix, Ph.D. Student in Computer Science

Ksenia received a B.S. in Biochemistry from Florida International University in 2020 and an M.S. in Bioengineering from Florida Atlantic University in 2021. She worked in the Assis group during her M.S. studies and rejoined us in 2023 as a Ph.D. student.

Contact: kmaciascalix2019@fau.edu

Antara Anika Piya, Ph.D. Student in Computer Science

Antara Anika received a B.S. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology in 2014. She joined the Assis group in 2021.

Contact: apiya2021@fau.edu

Eric Tran, Ph.D. Student in Computer Science

Eric received a B.S. in Microbiology from the University of California, Davis in 2015, an M.S. in Bioinformatics and Genomics from the University of Oregon in 2021, and an M.S. in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2023. He is currently working as a bioinformatician at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) while pursuing his Ph.D. in Computer Science. He joined the Assis group in 2024.

Contact: trane2023@fau.edu

Priscilla Xu, B.S. Student in Biomedical Engineering

Priscilla is a junior at FAU High School who is jointly pursuing a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering. She joined the Assis group in 2025.

Contact: pxu2022@fau.edu