CPCB 20th Anniversary Research Symposium

Registration is free to all past and present affiliates of CPCB. This event is not open to the general public.

Dogs vs. Cats

Support the 20th Anniversary Research Symposium and CPCB in general. Choose Team Scotty or Team Panther— all proceeds support joint program activities regardless of which university you donate to.

Team Scotty

Donate through Carnegie Mellon

Team Panther

Donate through the University of Pittsburgh

Hotels

Due to this being move-in week, we recommend booking early.

Convenient to Oakland

Convenient to The Assembly

(<10 min walk)
(30 min walk)

August 20–21, 2026

Thursday, August 20, 2026
CPCB Retreat

8:30 AM – 12:00 PM
CPCB Student Talks,

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Picnic,

1:00 PM – 5:00 PM
CPCB Olympics

Evening Welcome Reception
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
6:30 PM: Welcome remarks by CPCB founders Ivet Bahar and Bob Murphy
Alumni, faculty, students, and guests welcome,

Friday, August 21, 2026
CPCB 20th Anniversary Research Symposium

8:15 AM – 9:10 AM
Registration, Continental Breakfast, and Poster Setup
( available on-site; entrance on Morewood)

9:10 AM – 9:30 AM
Director's Welcome
David Koes and Carl Kingsford

9:30 AM – 9:40 AM
Graduate Student Association Welcome
Emma and Maddie

9:40 AM – 10:00 AM
Successes and Challenges of ML-driven Gene Therapy Design
Hannah Schriever
Machine Learning Scientist, Avista Therapeutics

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Poster Session 1 & Break

11:00 AM – 11:20 AM
Adventures in Gas Office: 15 Claude's Working Together for Drug Discovery
Matthew Baumgartner
Staff Data Scientist – Computational Chemistry, Valo Health

11:20 AM – 11:40 AM
Hierarchical Modeling of Spatial Tissue Niches and Cellular Composition in Large Spatial Transcriptomics Data
Cong Ma
Assistant Professor, Gilbert S. Omenn Department of Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics, University of Michigan

11:40 AM – 12:00 PM
Developing Image Analysis Tools for Digital Pathology
Samantha Panakkal
Senior Research Scientist, Gilead Sciences

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Lunch

1:00 PM – 1:20 PM
Studying Symbiosis in Fermented Food Microbiomes
Laura Tipton
Assistant Professor, Departments of Biology and Mathematics & Statistics, James Madison University

1:20 PM – 1:40 PM
Curiosity-Driven Research at a Scientific Nonprofit
Natalie Sauerwald
Associate Research Scientist, Flatiron Institute

1:40 PM – 2:00 PM
From Explainable AI to Data Intelligence: Lessons Across Academia and Industry
Akash Parvatikar
Director of AI, Biobase

2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Poster Session 2 & Break

3:00 PM – 3:20 PM
TBD

3:20 PM – 3:40 PM
Scalable Agentic Reasoning for Targeting Disordered Proteins
Arvind Ramanathan
Computational Science Leader, Data Science and Learning Division, Argonne National Laboratory

3:40 PM – 4:00 PM
From PhD to PUI: Teaching Careers at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution
Ericka Mochan
Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Computational and Chemical Sciences, Carlow University

4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Alumni and Faculty Career Panel