Olga Vitek is a biostatistician and computer scientist specializing in bioinformatics, proteomics, mass spectrometry, causal inference of biological function, and the development of open-source software for statistical analysis in these areas. She is a professor in the College of Science and Khoury College of Computer Sciences of Northeastern University.

Education and career

Vitek earned a bachelor's degree in

econometrics Econometrics is the application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics," '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. 8 ...

and statistics from the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centur ...

in 1995, and a master's degree in 1996. She earned a second master's degree in mathematical statistics at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mone ...

in 2001, and completed her PhD at Purdue in 2005. As a graduate student, she interned with Eli Lilly and Company; her 2005 doctoral dissertation, ''An Inferential Approach to Protein Backbone Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Assignment'', was jointly supervised by statistician Bruce A. Craig and computer scientist Chris Bailey-Kellogg. After postdoctoral research with

Ruedi Aebersold Rudolf Aebersold (better known as Ruedi Aebersold born September 12, 1954 ) is a Swiss biologist, regarded as a pioneer in the fields of proteomics and systems biology. He has primarily researched techniques for measuring proteins in complex samp ...

at the

Institute for Systems Biology Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) is a non-profit research institution located in Seattle, Washington, United States. ISB concentrates on systems biology, the study of relationships and interactions between various parts of biological systems, ...

in Seattle, Vitek joined the Purdue University faculty in 2006, with a joint appointment in the departments of statistics and computer science. She moved to Northeastern University in 2014, where she held the title of Sy and Laurie Sternberg Interdisciplinary Associate Professor before being promoted to full professor. She serves as council member for the

Human Proteome Organization The Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) is an international consortium of national proteomics research associations, government researchers, academic institutions, and industry partners. The organization was launched in February 2001, and it promote ...

, board of director for the US Human Proteome Organization, and president of the American Statistical Association Boston Chapter. She is a founding committee member of Computational Mass Spectrometry (CompMS). She is an editorial board member of '' Molecular and Cellular Proteomics'', and associate editor of '' Bioinformatics''.

Research

Vitek's research contributions include work with David E. Salt at Purdue University on genetic adaptations allowing plants to tolerate salt, and a study debunking earlier claims that some programming languages cause their users to write buggier code than other languages. She leads the project MSstats with Meena Choi and the project Cardinal with Kylie Bemis to develop open-sourced statistical software for mass spectrometry analyses, funded by the Essential Open Source Software for Science program of the

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is an organization established and owned by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan with an investment of 99 percent of the couple's wealth from their Facebook shares over their lifet ...

Recognition

Vitek was named a

Fellow of the American Statistical Association Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The number of new fellows per year is limited ...

in 2021. She received the Gilbert S. Omenn Computational Proteomics Award from the US Human Proteome Organization, and the Indigo BioAutomation FeMS Distinguished Contribution Award in 2021.

References

External links

Home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vitek, Olga Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American computer scientists American statisticians American women computer scientists American women statisticians University of Geneva alumni Purdue University alumni Northeastern University faculty Fellows of the American Statistical Association 21st-century American women