• B.S. (2002) Computer Science, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN USA
• M.S. (2004) Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN USA
• Ph.D. (2012) Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Merced, CA USA

• Professional Training:
  • 1998 Teaching Assistant, School of Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN USA
  • 1999-2006 Research Assistant, School of Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN USA
  • 2009 Graduate Teaching Assistant, School of Engineering, University of California, Merced, CA USA
  • 2006-2012 Graduate Student Researcher, School of Engineering, University of California, Merced, CA USA

Research Interests:

• Protein intrinsic disorder and flexibility
• Protein folding and conformational change
• Dimensionality reduction and estimation
• High-performance and parallel computing
• Reinforcement learning and dynamic programming
• Neural networks and cognitive neuroscience
• Numerical and analytical models of stem cell (de)differentiation

Selected Recent Publications:

1. Phillips, J.L., Gnanakaran S A Data-driven Approach to Modeling the Tripartite Structure of Multidrug Resistance Efflux Pumps, Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics (in press)
2. Gottardo R, Bailer RT, Korber BT, Gnanakaran S, Phillips J, et al. Plasma IgG to Linear Epitopes in the V2 and V3 Regions of HIV-1 gp120 Correlate with a Reduced Risk of Infection in the RV144 Vaccine Efficacy Trial, PLoS ONE 8(9):e75665 (2013) (link)
3. Stieh, D., Phillips, J.L., Rogers, P.M., King, D.F., Clanci, G.C., Jeffs, S.A., Gnanakaran, S., Shattock, R.J. Dynamic electrophoretic fingerprinting of the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein, Retrovirology 10:33 (2013) (link)
4. Phillips, J.L., Colvin, M.E., Newsam, S. Validating clustering of molecular dynamics simulations using polymer models, BMC Bioinformatics 12,445 (2011) (link)
5. Yamada, J., Phillips, J.L., Patel, S., Goldfien, G., Calestagne-Morelli, A., Huang, H., Reza, H., Acheson, J., Krishnan, V.V., Newsam, S., Gopinathan, A., Lau, E.Y., Colvin, M.E., Uversky, V.N., Rexach, M.F. A bimodal distribution of two distinct categories of intrinsically-disordered structures with separate functions in FG nucleoporins, Molecular and Cellular Proteomics 9,2205-2224 (2010) (link)
6. Lau, E.Y., Phillips, J.L., Colvin, M.E. Molecular dynamics simulations of highly charged green fluorescent proteins, Molecular Physics 107,1233-1241 (2009) (link)
7. Phillips, J.L., Colvin, M.E., Lau, E.Y., Newsam, S. Analyzing dynamical simulations of intrinsically disordered proteins using spectral clustering, 2008 IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine Workshops, 17-24 (2008) (link)
8. Tugcu, M., Wang, X., Hunter, J.E., Phillips, J.L., Noelle, D.C., Wilkes, D.M. A computational neuroscience model of working memory with appliaction to robot perceltual learning, Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Computational Intelligence (2007) (link)
9. Phillips, J.L., Noelle, D.C. Working memory for robots: inspirations from computational neuroscience, Proceesings of the 5th International Conference on Development and Learning (2006) (link)
10. Phillips, J.L., Noelle, D.C. A biologically inspired working memory framework for robots, IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 559-604 (2005) (link)
11. Phillips, J.L., Kogekar, S., Adams, J.A. Emergency automated response system (EARS), Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (2004) (link)
12. Phillips, J.L., Noelle, D.C. Reinforcement learning of dimensional attention for categorization, Proceedings of the 26th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (2004) (link)