About

I am a data scientist, physicist, and machine learning enthusiast currently working as a Data Scientist at The Climate Corporation, a subsidiary of Bayer and a leader in ag tech.

Check out my resume, and my Linkedin profile for more information.

I conducted my graduate research as a member of Prof. Andrew Mugler’s research group at Purdue University. For my thesis dissertation I studied phenomena related to single and multicellular chemotaxis using computational tools and mathematical models. The research problems were primarily related to how noise and fluctuations in a cell’s microenvironment limit its ability to chemotax, and how collective cell behavior can improve chemotactic performance. My thesis can be found on Purdue’s library website and on my github.

Please reach out if you would like to view a more up-to-date resume. You may also check out my github page to view the simulation code I developed for my research as well as some hobby data science projects.

Research Papers

  • J. Varennes, H. Moon, S. Saha, A. Mugler, and B. Han (equal contributors). *Physical constraints on accuracy and persistence during breast cancer cell chemotaxis. PLoS Computational Biology, 2019. [paper][preprint]
  • S. Gupta, J. Varennes, H. C. Korswagen, and A. Mugler. Temporal precision of regulated gene expression. PLoS Computational Biology, 2018. [paper][preprint]
  • J. Varennes, S. Fancher, B. Han, and A. Mugler. Emergent versus individual-based multicellular chemotaxis. Physical Review Letters, 2017. [paper][preprint]
  • J. Varennes, B. Han, and A. Mugler. Collective chemotaxis through noisy multicellular gradient sensing. Biophysical Journal, 2016. [paper][preprint]
  • J. Varennes and A. Mugler. Sense and sensitivity: physical limits to multicellular sensing, migration and drug response. Molecular Pharmaceutics, 2016. [paper][preprint]
  • A.W. Cummings, J. Varennes, F. Léonard. Electrical Contacts to Three-Dimensional Arrays of Carbon Nanotubes. Nanotechnology, IEEE Transactions, 2013. [paper][preprint]

Presentations & Invited Talks

  • “Emergent versus Individual-based Chemotaxis in Cell Clusters”, American Physical Society March Meeting, New Orleans. 3/17
  • “Emergent versus Individual-based Chemotaxis in Cell Clusters”, Gordon Research Conference on Stochastic Physics in Biology, Ventura CA. 1/17
  • “Collective Migration due to Multicellular Chemical Sensing”, Midwest Quantitative Biology Symposium, Purdue University. 10/17
  • “Collective Cell Sensing & Multicellular Migration”, Invited talk, University of Edinburgh. 9/16
  • “Collective Sensing & Migration during Tumor Cell Invasion”, Purdue Cancer Research Day, Purdue University. 9/16
  • “Limits to the Precision and Speed of Multicellular Chemotaxis”, 10th Annual q-bio Conference, Vanderbilt University. 7/16
  • “Collective Cell Migration”, Physics Graduate Student Seminar, Purdue University. 7/16
  • “Limits to Collective Chemotaxis”, Information, Probability and Inference in Systems Biology Conference, Institute of Science and Technology Austria. 5/16
  • “Limits to Collective Chemotaxis”, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Biomolecular Galaxy, Purdue University. 5/16
  • “Limits to Chemically Guided Multicellular Migration”, American Physical Society March Meeting, Baltimore. 3/16
  • “Tumor Cell Invasion: A Process of Collective Cell Migration and Sensing”, Purdue Cancer Research Day. 10/15
  • “Collective Cell Migration and Sensing”, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Protein Galaxy, Purdue University. 5/15

Contact me

Please feel free to send me an email using the mail icon at the bottom of the page or connect with me on linkedin.