I’m a bioinformatician and computational biologist with over 15 years of experience in biomedical science, including 10 years in immunology and tuberculosis research. I specialise in clinical genomics and building the data pipelines that turn raw biological data into publication-ready results.
In my current role as a Data Analyst at the Division of Molecular Biology and Human Genetics, Stellenbosch University, I work with whole genome sequencing data and clinical metadata on HPC clusters and Databricks. I’m also completing an MSc in Computational Biology at Stellenbosch University, focusing on cytokine phenotyping and pQTL mapping in tuberculosis cohorts.
I started my career at the bench, processing clinical samples and running flow cytometry for TB immunology trials, and later coordinated multi-site clinical research studies. That means I understand the data because I was there when it was created.
Key Highlights: - Contributed to peer-reviewed TB diagnostics and vaccine immunogenicity research cited 100+ times. - Built Nextflow pipelines for WGS and RNA-seq, and medallion-architecture pipelines on Databricks with MLflow. - Developed an automated data-logging dashboard for clinical trial field operations. - 7+ years in ISO-accredited laboratories with flow cytometry, PBMC processing, and assay validation.
I’m passionate about integrating bioinformatics and computational biology to drive scientific innovation and improve healthcare outcomes. Let’s connect!
My journey
From the diagnostic lab to data pipelines, most recent first: each step built on the one below it. The project pages show how my work has grown, and the older ones include a short “Looking back” note on what I’d do differently today.
October 2026
Production-style pipelines and machine learning
Databricks lakehouse pipelines with MLflow: the credit risk pipeline and the BAL study pipeline
July 2026
Data Analyst
Data Analyst at Stellenbosch University, alongside my MSc in Computational Biology
May 2026
Transcriptomics
Chromosome X RNA-seq: a Nextflow pipeline feeding differential expression in Bioconductor
February 2026
First portfolio analyses
Exploratory analysis in Python and R: COVID-19 blood counts, global TB trends and R and Python together
2024
Into bioinformatics
BSc Honours: a whole-genome variant-calling pipeline in Nextflow and GATK on an HPC cluster
2023 – 2025
Clinical research coordination
Project Coordinator for multiple concurrent clinical research studies
2016 – 2023
TB immunology research
Technical Laboratory Officer at Stellenbosch University: clinical sample processing and flow cytometry for TB and vaccine studies
2010 – 2015
Diagnostic and quality laboratories
Medical technologist training at the NHLS (Tygerberg Hospital), immunoassay development at Synexa Life Sciences, and quality control at Biovac
Education
2025 – 2027 (expected)
MSc Computational Biology
Stellenbosch University
Research focus: cytokine phenotyping and pQTL mapping in tuberculosis cohorts
2024
BSc Honours, Bioinformatics & Computational Biology
Stellenbosch University
2012
Immunology Board Exam
Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA)
Professional licensing exam for medical technologists, passed with 81% (A+)
2006 – 2010
Higher National Diploma, Biomedical Technology
Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Certifications
- Databricks (2026): Fundamentals Accreditation; AI/BI for Data Analysts; SQL Analytics on Databricks
- 365 Data Science (2026): Data Scientist and Data Analyst career tracks
- Coursera (2024): Google Project Management Specialization; Data Analyst with R
- FutureLearn (2024): Bioinformatics for Biologists, including Analysing and Interpreting Genomics Datasets
Skills
Bioinformatics & Genomics
NGS pipelines · Variant calling · RNA-seq · pQTL mapping
Nextflow DSL2, BWA-MEM2, GATK, bcftools, samtools, HISAT2, StringTie, Ballgown; host genetics and multi-omics
See it in: WGS variant-calling pipeline · chrX RNA-seq
Statistics & Machine Learning
Regression · PCA · Random forest · SHAP
Association testing, Wilcoxon and FDR correction, cross-validation, ROC/AUC; scikit-learn
See it in: Credit risk pipeline · BAL Databricks pipeline
Data Engineering & Data Quality
Databricks · PySpark · Delta Lake · MLflow
Bronze/silver/gold pipelines, SQL, validation checks, unit-tested cleaning functions, PII removal
See it in: Credit risk pipeline · BAL Databricks pipeline
Programming & Reproducibility
Python · R · SQL · Bash
pandas, NumPy, tidyverse; Git, Docker / Singularity, mamba; Linux and HPC (PBS)
See it in: Tutorials · this site’s source
Visualisation & Reporting
ggplot2 · Power BI · Tableau · Quarto
matplotlib, seaborn, Databricks AI/BI dashboards, RMarkdown, LaTeX, Excel
See it in: Global TB trends · COVID-19 blood counts
Lab, Clinical & Project Management
Flow cytometry · PBMC processing · ISO-accredited QA
FACSCantoII, FlowJo, assay validation, clinical trial coordination, budgets and stakeholder management
See it in: Publications