Dan McFarlin, PhD

Position title: Senior Information Processing Consultant

Email: drmcfarl@wisc.edu

Improving the statistical quality, biological relevance, and convenience of analysis of high throughput data sets, and integrating different data sources into unified models, is most often the focus of Dan’s attention. He currently works with resting state and event related fMRI, structural MRI, ASL and physiology data, with interests that include developmental trajectories and how mental health issues, particularly anxiety, arise from a molecular to a structural and functional level. Dan began research in developmental neurobiology, mapping the source of the enteric nervous system [1], and cloning and sequencing vasoactive intestinal peptide [2] in the UW Anatomy dept. He received a PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology (2002) investigating the signal transduction of Ras [3] and Raf [4], working in the UW Human Oncology and Oncology depts. As a post-doctoral fellow in the UW Biostatistics and Medical Informatics Department, Dan created software to model multi-region thermodynamic kinetics of signal transduction in development, cancer, and aging. Followed by modulating self-renewal and differentiation of human embryonic stem cells via engineered topographic cues, in the UW VetMed and Chemical & Biological Engineering depts. [56, 7]. Dan started as an information processing consultant in the UW Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior in 2007 and joined Ned’s lab in 2011 [8].