Barrett Foat

Bioinformatics Team Lead

Summary
I am passionate about driving the cycle of data-driven insight and real-world application.
Career Theme
Taking biological big data to practical application via rapid synthesis of knowledge, methods, and
computational technologies. I excel at the "why", the "what", the "how", and the "who".
Specialties: Leading combined computational and experimental biology projects. Communicating
computational concepts to experimentalists and biology concepts to computationalists. Evaluating
bioinformatics talent. Evaluating computational technologies. Bioinformatics algorithm development.
Integrative analysis of genomics data. High performance computing and parallelization methods for
computational biology. Statistical modeling of gene expression data. Motif discovery. Systems biology. Data
analysis. Statistics. Molecular biology methods. Synthetic biology. Data science.
Education
Columbia University in the City of New York
Ph.D., Biological Sciences, 2001 - 2007
University of Wisconsin-Madison
B.S., Genetics, 1998 - 2001
Experience
Bioinformatics Team Lead at Monsanto
July 2013 - Present (1 year)
Systems Improvement Lead, Computational Biology Platform at Monsanto
September 2011 - June 2013 (1 year 10 months)
Gene Regulation Lead, Gene Expression Technology at Monsanto
September 2010 - August 2011 (1 year)
Computational Biologist, Gene Expression Technology at Monsanto
June 2009 - September 2010 (1 year 4 months)
Genetics Fellow & Postdoctoral Research Associate at Washington University School of Medicine
June 2007 - June 2009 (2 years 1 month)
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Department of Genetics, Center for Genome Sciences
Discovering structurally defined cis-regulatory elements within mRNAs by integrative analysis of genomic
sequence and functional genomics data.
Advisor: Gary D. Stormo
PhD Student & Graduate Research Assistant at Columbia University
September 2001 - May 2007 (5 years 9 months)
Department of Biological Sciences
Quantitative modeling of gene expression regulation by RNA-binding proteins and transcription factors in
Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
Advisor: Harmen J. Bussemaker
Honors and Awards
Most Valuable Team Member
Monsanto Genome Analytics
August 2013
Technology Leadership Mentoring Program
Monsanto
2012
Competitive program for leadership development, including career mentoring with senior managers.
Post Doctoral Fellow in Informatics
PhRMA Foundation, Washington, DC
2007
Genetics Fellow
Department of Genetics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO
2007
Newberry Graduate Fellow
Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY
2006
Sajovic Graduate Fellow
Columbia University, New York, NY
2005
Sajovic Graduate Fellow
Columbia University, New York, NY
2002
Honorable Mention, Predoctoral Fellowship in Biological Sciences
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Howard Hughes Medical Institute
2002
Honorable Mention, Graduate Research Fellowship
National Science Foundation
2002
Outstanding Senior Award
College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison
2001
Hilldale Undergraduate Research Fellow
University of Wisconsin, Madison
2000
Patents
System and method for quantifying the sequence specificity of nucleotide binding factors
eu Patent 8219323
Inventors: Barrett Foat, Harmen B., Ronald T.
Publications
Discovering structural cis-regulatory elements by modeling the behaviors of mRNAs
Mol Syst Biol. April 28, 2009
Authors: Barrett Foat, Gary D Stormo
TransfactomeDB: a resource for exploring the nucleotide sequence specificity and condition-specific
regulatory activity of trans-acting factors
Nucleic Acids Res. January 2008
Authors: Barrett Foat, Ronald G. Tepper, Harmen J. Bussemaker
Predictive modeling of genome-wide mRNA expression: from modules to molecules
Annu Rev Biophys Biomol Struct. June 2007
Authors: Barrett Foat, Harmen J. Bussemaker, Lucas D. Ward
Statistical mechanical modeling of genome-wide transcription factor occupancy data by MatrixREDUCE
Bioinformatics July 2006
Authors: Barrett Foat, Alexandre V. Morozov, Harmen J. Bussemaker
Profiling condition-specific, genome-wide regulation of mRNA stability in yeast
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. December 6, 2005
Authors: Barrett Foat, S. Sean Houshmandi, Wendy M. Olivas, Harmen J. Bussemaker
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T-profiler: scoring the activity of predefined groups of genes using gene expression data
Nucleic Acids Res. July 1, 2005
Authors: Barrett Foat, Andr Boorsma, Daniel Vis, Frans Klis, Harmen J. Bussemaker
Defining transcriptional networks through integrative modeling of mRNA expression and transcription
factor binding data
BMC Bioinformatics March 18, 2004
Authors: Barrett Foat, Feng Gao, Harmen J Bussemaker
Identification of genes expressed in C. elegans touch receptor neurons
Nature July 18, 2002
Authors: Barrett Foat, Yun Zhang, Charles Ma, Thomas Delohery, Brian Nasipak, Alexander Bounoutas,
Harmen J. Bussemaker, Stuart K. Kim, Martin Chalfie
Sister chromatids fail to separate during an induced endoreplication cycle in Drosophila embryos
Curr Bio. May 14, 2002
Authors: Barrett Foat, Smruti J Vidwans, Paul J DiGregorio, Antony W Shermoen, Janet Iwasa, Nikita
Yakubovich, Patrick H O'Farrell
Skills & Expertise
Bioinformatics
Computational Biology
Genomics
Molecular Biology
Genetics
Functional Genomics
Systems Biology
Statistics
R
Sequence Analysis
Gene Regulation
Data Analysis
Perl
Scientific Computing
High Performance Computing
Linux
Matrix Management
Transcriptomics
Predictive Modeling
C
Synthetic Biology
Parallel Computing
Clojure
Data Integration
Computational Genomics
Epigenetics
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Epigenomics
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Barrett Foat
Bioinformatics Team Lead
Contact Barrett on LinkedIn
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