Kelly Sovacool

PhD Student since 2019

Research areas

  • Bioinformatics
  • Machine Learning
  • Software Development
  • C. difficile

Education

  • B.S.: University of Kentucky (2018)
Kelly Sovacool

Background

I’m interested in developing bioinformatics tools, packages, and data analysis pipelines for microbial ecology and host-associated microbiome research. I’m a fan of open science, open source software, and reproducible research.

When I’m not in the dry lab, you might find me running, cycling, climbing, or otherwise being active outside. I also volunteer with Girls Who Code, teach Software Carpentry workshops, and host CoderSpaces office hours.

Papers from time in Schloss lab

  1. Hagan AK, Lesniak NA, Balunas MJ, Bishop L, Close WL, Doherty MD, Elmore AG, Flynn KJ, Hannigan GK, Koumpouras CC, Jenior ML, Kozik AJ, McBride K, Rifkin SB, Stough JMA, Sovacool KL, Sze MA, Tomkovich S, Topçuoğlu BD, Schloss PD. 2020. Ten simple rules to increase computational skills among biologists with Code Clubs. PLOS Computational Biology. 16: e1008119. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008119.
  2. Topçuoğlu BD, Lapp Z, Sovacool KL, Snitkin E, Wiens J, Schloss PD. 2021. mikropml: User-Friendly R Package for Supervised Machine Learning Pipelines. Journal of Open Source Software. 6: 3073. DOI: 10.21105/joss.03073.
  3. Sovacool KL, Westcott SL, Mumphrey MB, Dotson GA, Schloss PD. 2022. OptiFit: an improved method for fitting amplicon sequences to existing OTUs. mSphere. 7: 00916-21. DOI: 10.1128/msphere.00916-21.
  4. Lapp Z, Sovacool KL, Lesniak N, King D, Barnier C, Flickinger M, Krüger J, Armour CR, Lapp MM, Tallant J, Diao R, Oneka M, Tomkovich S, Moltzau Anderson J, Lucas SK, Schloss PD. 2022. Developing and deploying an integrated workshop curriculum teaching computational skills for reproducible research. The Journal of Open Source Education. DOI: 10.21105/jose.00144.
  5. Barron MR, Sovacool KL, Abernathy-Close L, Vendrov KC, Standke AK, Bergin IL, Schloss PD, Young VB. 2022. Intestinal Inflammation Reversibly Alters the Microbiota to Drive Susceptibility to Clostridioides difficile Colonization in a Mouse Model of Colitis. mBio. 13: e0190422. DOI: 10.1128/mbio.01904-22.
  6. Armour CR, Sovacool KL, Close WL, Topcuoglu BD, Wiens J, Schloss PD. 2023. Machine learning classification by fitting amplicon sequences to existing OTUs. mSphere. 8: 00336-23. DOI: 10.1128/msphere.00336-23.