Dr Joey Mark S. Diaz

Profile

I joined the University of Leeds as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow under the MELGEN (Melanoma Genetics) PhD Training Network in 2016 before receiving an appointment as a Visiting Research Assistant in 2019. I also serve as an Adjunct Professor of Statistics in Central Luzon State University since 2022 in the Philippines, and a consultant in risk modelling in a London based firm since 2019.

I obtained my PhD from University of Leeds in 2021 and my thesis dealt with the analysis of genomic copy number alterations and survival in primary melanoma patients.

I finished a BSc in Statistics in Central Luzon State University (CLSU), Philippines in 2010 as a government scholar with an undergraduate work on mean imputation and Markov Chain Monte Carlo imputation techniques in handling missing values in a dataset.

After working as a research assistant in the National Genetic Program Unit of the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) and biostatistician in the University of Sto Tomas Center for Drug Research, Evaluation and Studies, Inc., I was awarded an Accelerated Science and Technology Human Resource Development Program (ASTHRDP) in 2011 by the Philippine Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to study MSc in Health Informatics-Bioinformatics track – a joint program of College of Medicine and College of Arts and Sciences in University of the Philippines Manila (UPM).

My master’s thesis focused on the classification of lung cancer using statistical and machine learning methods applied to gene expression data.

Research interests

My research involves identification of copy number alterations in primary melanoma and its association with clinical charateristics including survival; machine learning applied to gene expression data ; and teaching strategy to university students in the Philippines during the pandemic.

Qualifications

• PhD Statistical Genomics
• MSc Health Informatics-Bioinformatics track
• BSc Statistics