biology

Katherine Pollard

Katherine Pollard is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Katherine Pollard rather than just read about it. In short: Katherine Snowden Pollard is the Director of the Gladstone Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology and a professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She is a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator.

Key takeaways

Katherine Pollard belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Katherine Pollard to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Katherine Pollard from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Katherine Snowden Pollard is the Director of the Gladstone Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology and a professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She is a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. She was awarded Fellowship of the International Society for Computational Biology in 2020 and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2021 for outstanding contributions to computational biology and bioinformatics.

Education Pollard received a B.A. summa cum laude in anthropology and mathematics from Pomona College and an M.S. from the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). She was awarded a Ph.D. in 2003 from UC Berkeley for research supervised by Mark van der Laan.

Career and research Pollard is a leader in developing statistical models and open-source software for big data, particularly in genomics. She and her team pioneered the identification of the fastest-evolving regions of the human genome, known as human accelerated regions (HARs). Pollard has also designed methods to study the human microbiome and other microbial communities, setting the stage for the use of metagenomics in precision medicine. Before joining UCSF, she held a postdoctoral research position with Sandrine Dudoit at UC Berkeley and worked with David Haussler at UC Santa Cruz.

Honors and awards Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science. 2023. Member, National Academy of Medicine Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. 2021. Fellow, International Society for Computational Biology. 2020. Gladstone Institutes Mentoring Award. 2019. Women Who Lead in the Life Sciences. SF Business Times. 2018. 75 Most Influential Alumni, UC Berkeley School of Public Health. 2018. Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. 2017–present. Fellow, California Academy of Sciences. 2013–present. Breakthrough Biomedical Research Award, UCSF. 2009–2010. Sloan Research Fellowship, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. 2008–2010. NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship, NIGMS/NIH NRSA. 2003–2005. Evelyn Fix Prize, Chin Long Chiang Biostatistics Student of the Year, UC Berkeley. 2003. Valedictorian, High Scholarship Prize, Math Prize, Anthropology Prize, Phi Beta Kappa Award, Pomona College. 1995. Sophomore Math Prize, Pomona College. 1993.

References

External links Homepage Gladstone Institutes Homepage Publications Human Accelerated Regions

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Katherine Pollard

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Katherine Pollard claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Katherine Pollard before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Katherine Pollard ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Katherine Pollard

In research: Katherine Pollard appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Katherine Pollard in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Katherine Pollard is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American bioinformaticians, American biostatisticians, Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Katherine Pollard outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Katherine Pollard in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Katherine Pollard means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Katherine Pollard out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Katherine Pollard in simple terms?

Why does Katherine Pollard matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Katherine Pollard?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Katherine Pollard.