The immune system is highly complex and dynamic; thus understanding the interconnecting pathways that regulate immune responses is critical for the effective modulation and enhancement of immune protection by vaccination or immunotherapy. Historically, the majority of basic and translational research in immunology was limited to identifying and evaluating the function of individual immune components independent of their systemic context. The recent advent of high-throughput technologies has allowed us to start probing the complex interactions of immune cells both within and among diverse populations and tissue environments, providing high-dimensional data that captures system-wide states with molecular and cellular resolution. Large-scale biological data sets have the potential to significantly advance our understanding of the circuits driving immune organization, function, and dysregulation in disease. However, the volume and complexity of these data necessitate the development and use of advanced computational techniques to derive biologically meaningful conclusions, which often makes such approaches impenetrable to traditional cellular immunologists.

In my research, I combined systems approaches with experimental techniques to probe the interconnected pathways driving a variety of immune responses, and derive mathematically rigorous and clinically relevant insights into the spatial and temporal dependence of immune homeostasis.