Terry (Byeongyeon) Cho
Terry is a PhD student in Harvard’s Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics (BIG) program. He received his B.Sc. in Economics from University College London and his Master of Biomedical Informatics from Harvard Medical School before beginning his PhD. His path from economics to computational biology shaped his interest in using quantitative approaches to understand complex biological systems.
As a graduate student in the Kostic Lab, Terry studies the human microbiome across biological and evolutionary scales—from the genetic material of bacterial extracellular vesicles, to deep-time host–microbe cophylogenetics, to population-level relationships between the microbiome and systemic human health. His work combines microbial genetics, bioinformatics, statistical modeling, and computational tool development. Broadly, Terry specializes in using genetic tools in microbiome research to understand the architecture and development of autoimmunity.
Personal Profile
What you enjoy doing outside of the lab?
Ironing, cleaning, and, more recently, trying to pick up tennis and golf. I also spend an unreasonable amount of time optimizing things that probably do not need to be optimized.
What’s your lab survival item?
Caffeine and a terminal window. Most of my code and jobs apparently run better overnight, and I don’t. Caffeine helps me operate under terminal sleepiness.
If your science journey were a movie, what would the title be?
Titanic.
What is your unofficial lab superpower?
Removing old, stubborn labels from autoclaved glassware with a scalpel. Years of computational training have prepared me remarkably well for this highly specialized form of manual labor.
If you could be any microbe, what would you be and why?
Myxococcus llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochensis. It has cool swarming motility, and its name is harder to pronounce than mine.
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Contact
I'm always looking for new and exciting opportunities. Let's connect.
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