KC Lab Team

Dukka KC, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Dukka KC is the Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Previously, he served as the Associate Dean for Research at the College of Computing and as a Professor in Computer Science at Michigan Tech. He was also the Associate Director of the Institute of Computing and Cybersystems (ICC) there. Born and raised in Nepal, he pursued his undergraduate studies in Japan, earning his B.E. in Computer Science from Kyoto University's College of Engineering in 2001. He completed his M.Inf. and Ph.D. in Bioinformatics at the same institution in 2003 and 2006, respectively, under the guidance of Dr. Tatsuya Akutsu. During his Ph.D., he also worked as a visiting graduate student in Dr. Sandor Vajda's lab at Boston University. After completing his Ph.D., he undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the Georgia Institute of Technology under Dr. Jeffrey Skolnick. He then continued his postdoctoral work at UNC Charlotte in the Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics with Dr. Dennis Livesay. Following this, he was a Cancer Research Training Award Fellow at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH), under Dr. Byungook Lee. He also worked as a Bioinformatics Scientist at the Center for Information Technology at NIH for Dr. Peter Munson. Dr. KC then joined North Carolina A&T State University as an Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Computational Science and Engineering. In 2019, he moved to Wichita State University, where he served as the Director of Data Analytics and Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science until 2021. Dr. KC's research interests encompass the development of computational approaches to various bioinformatics problems, including the elucidation of protein sequence, structure, function, and evolutionary relationships, as well as the analysis of next-generation sequencing data. He is also actively involved in initiatives aimed at improving computing infrastructure. Additionally, he serves on the editorial boards of BMC Bioinformatics and the Frontiers in Bioinformatics journal. Additionally, he co-chairs the Function COSI at the ISMB conference. ...read more

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Abel Reyes-Angulo

PhD Student

ABEL REYES-ANGULO is a Ph.D. student in Computational Science and Engineering at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, MI. He received his B.S. degree in Computer Engineering and his M.S. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University Northwest in Hammond, IN, in 2018 and 2021, respectively. His research interests include, but are not limited to, machine learning, deep learning in computer vision, medical image analysis with AI, software development, and virtual reality.

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Callen Carrier

Undergraduate Student

Callen Carrier is an Undergraduate student of Computer Science at Michigan Tech. Before KC lab, he took classes at Michigan Tech following the Computer Science path for three years, and a class in data mining piqued his interest. After this class in data mining and from other interests in machine learning, he joined KC lab to further his knowledge and experience working with various machine learning models. Now at KC lab with Pawel Pratyush as his mentor, he helps to search for predictive models that offer increased performance when applied to data in the field of bioinformatics.

Hamid D. Ismail, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Researcher

Hamid D. Ismail received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in computational science from NC A&T State University, USA, and DVM and B.Sc. from the University of Khartoum. He earned several professional certifications including SAS Certified Base Programmer, SAS Certified Advanced Programmer, SAS Certified Clinical Trials Programmer, and SQL Expert Programmer. He is a bioinformatician, biologist, data scientist, statistician, and machine learning specialist. Hamid worked as a research associate at NC A&T State University and as a contractor in federal and clinical trial projects. He is currently working as a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Computer Science at Michigan Technological University and as Adjunct Professor at NC A&T State University. Hamid's research interests are focused on bioinformatics algorithms, application of machine learning in genomic data and post-translational protein modifications, and genomic data science including the development of bioinformatics tools. Hamid is also peer-reviewing for several renowned journals and science book publishers and an author of two textbooks.

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Isaac Sutka

Undergraduate Student

Isaac Sutka is a second-year undergraduate student at Wayne County Community College District with aspirations to study computer science or data science. Before joining the KC Lab, Isaac took the initiative to study computer languages and concepts independently, including learning how to code in C. His interest in machine learning was sparked by its practical applications in fields like bioinformatics, which have the potential to significantly impact the world, such as in drug discovery and development. Currently, Isaac is working in the KC Lab under the mentorship of Mohamed Bah and Steven Garrett. With their guidance, Isaac is expanding his knowledge in bioinformatics and machine learning, exploring the intersection of these fields to contribute to meaningful research and projects.

Kepha Barasa

Graduate Student

Kepha Barasa is currently enrolled in a Master's program in data science at Michigan Technological University (MTU). Prior to joining the KC Lab, Barasa earned an undergraduate degree in Economics with minors in computer science and finance from Oregon State University (OSU). Barasa is currently working on using protein language models to identify DNA binding protein proteins under Suresh Pokharel's mentorship. His research pursuits primarily focus on the application of machine learning techniques to address challenges across various domains.

Mahima Verma

Undergraduate Student

Mahima Verma is an undergraduate student currently pursuing her degree in Computer Science at Lamar University. Recently awarded the esteemed David Beck Fellowship at LU in 2024, She is poised to embark on a transformative journey at the KC Lab at Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan. With a keen interest in pushing the boundaries of scientific exploration, Mahima will be immersing herself in the study of new deep-learning models for malonylation research. She will be gearing up for her debut in academic publishing and co-authoring her first research paper.

Meenal Chaudhary, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Researcher

Meenal did her PhD in Computational Data Science and Engineering from North Carolina A&TState University. She is presently working as a postdoctoral researcher in KC Lab at Michigan Tech and Newman Lab at North Carolina A&T State University. Her research interests include Transfer learning, Protein Language models, and Deep learning models.

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Mohamed Bah

MS Student

Mohamed is pursuing a Master of Science in Data Science at the College of Computing, Michigan Technical University. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems and an MBA from the Institute of Public Administration and Management (IPAM), University of Sierra Leone. With over 8 years of work experience, Mohamed has worked as a database and systems administrator. He has contributed to various IT projects, particularly in data-related initiatives. Currently, at the KC lab, Under the mentorship of Suresh, Mohamed is focused on developing pipelines for extracting protein structures from amino acids and integrating these with protein sequences. Additionally, he is engaged in leveraging deep learning and protein language models to address biomedical challenges.

Pawel Pratyush

PhD Student

Pawel Pratyush is a Ph.D. student at KC Lab at the College of Computing, Michigan Tech. Prior to joining KC Lab, he was an undergraduate student of Computer and Engineering (CSE) at National Institute of Technology (NIT), Bhopal, India. His undergraduate research projects/papers largely dealt with the application of machine learning and deep learning in robotics, spatiotemporal modeling, health informatics, and astrophysics. At KC lab, he is responsible for developing deep learning-powered computational tools for the prediction of Post-Translational Modification sites in protein sequences. He is also interested in tackling problems related to Bioinformatics using notions of multilabel learning, cross-talks, transfer learning, and positive unlabeled learning. During his spare time, he likes watching movies, going on hikes, listening to music, and discussing his favorite shows/movies.

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Pukar Baral

MS Student

Pukar Baral is a Master’s student at the Department of Applied Computing at Michigan Technological University. He received his Bachelor's in Computer Engineering from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. Pukar is passionate about image processing and computer vision, with a specific focus on medical image analysis. He actively contributes to research at the KC Lab, where he investigates symmetry detection in protein structures. In his spare time, Pukar enjoys watching movies, playing games, and hiking.

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Soufia Bahmani

PhD Student

Soufia Bahmani is a PhD student advised by Dr. KC at College of Computing, Michigan Tech. She received her Bachelors in Information Technology Engineering from Qazvin Azad University, Iran and subsequently completed her Masters from Amirkabir University, Iran in Information Technology Engineering. Before joining KC lab, she co-authored multiple papers in reputed journals in the field of image processing, machine learning and health informatics. She was also involved in software industry as a full stack developer over a span of 5 years. At KC lab, she is interested in developing handcrafted features independent deep learning models to solve important problems related to proteomics and genomics.

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Steven Garrett

Undergraduate Student

Steven Garrett is an undergraduate student at KC Lab within Michigan Technological University's College of Computing. He is pursuing a B.S. in Software Engineering. Research interests include the utilization of generative language models in the field of bioinformatics, human centered development, and ethical applications of natural language processing.

Suresh Pokharel

PhD Student

Suresh Pokharel is a Ph.D. student at the College of Computing at Michigan Technological University. He is working as a Graduate Research Assistant at Dr. Dukka KC's research lab (KC-Lab). He is broadly interested in computational biology, machine learning, deep learning methods, transfer learning, generative modeling, and computer vision. In his recent works, he is developing machine learning and deep learning based models to locate the various post-translational modification (PTM) in protein sequences. Suresh received a Bachelor of Computer Engineering degree in 2017 and an M.Sc. in Computer Systems and Knowledge Engineering degree in 2021 from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. ...read more

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