Floydhub vm:

Neural networks are changing the way that Lex Flagel studies DNA.

Lex’s recent paper – The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Convolutional Neural Networks in Population Genetic Inference – demonstrates how simple deep learning techniques can be used to tackle the ever-changing field of DNA research.

Lex is the Quantitative Genetics Team Lead at Bayer Crop Science. At Bayer, Lex focuses on genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, and data science on crops like corn and soybeans. Don’t worry — we’ll dig into what all those terms mean! Lex has a PhD in Genetics from Iowa State University. He’s also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Minnesota.

I’m excited to share my conversation with Lex for this Humans of Machine Learning (#humansofml) interview. In this post, we’re going to learn about how Lex uses deep learning to study population genetics, as well as Lex’s own journey with data science and AI.