About
Brett McKinney, Ph.D., is a theoretical physicist and professor of computer science who specializes in the development of machine learning (ML) and AI algorithms for problems in the biomedical and physical sciences. He has made important contributions to methods that detect networks of interacting variables for accurate and interpretable ML models. He applies these explainable ML methods in close collaboration with researchers in neuroscience, immunology, geochemistry and astrobiology. He has also developed theoretical approaches to understand the foundations of quantum mechanics, such as the role of the dimensionality of space on many-body systems like Bose-Einstein condensates.
McKinney is a professor in the Tandy School of Computer Science with a joint appointment in the Department of Mathematics. He is a native Tulsan who did his undergraduate work summa cum laude in mathematics and physics at The University of Tulsa where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the honors program. He did his graduate work at the University of Oklahoma, obtaining a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in biomathematics and computational biology at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Before joining TU, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Genetics at the University of Alabama Birmingham School of Medicine.
Education
- Ph.D., Theoretical Physics, The University of Oklahoma, 2003
- M.S., Physics, The University of Oklahoma, 1999
- B.S., Physics and Mathematics, The University of Tulsa, 1996
Research interests and areas of expertise
- Machine learning
- Bioinformatics
- Epistasi
- Gene-gene interactions
- Astrobiology
- Dimensional perturbation theory
- Bose-Einstein condensates