Alejandro Fontal

Research Data Scientist

Welcome to my personal site and portfolio. My name is Alejandro and I am a researcher from Barcelona. My area of expertise lies in the application of data science to various fields of scientific research, specifically in the areas of bioinformatics, epidemiology, and computational biomedicine.

Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).

In my research, I use a combination of time series analysis, GIS, metagenomics sequencing, and epidemiology to study the underlying drivers of diseases burdening public health systems. As a big part of my work performed during my PhD and postdoc has been focused on Kawasaki Disease, a pediatric syndrome that affects thousands of children each year, and whose etiology is still a mystery after over 50 years of being studied.

Apart from this, I also work together with our colleagues in the AIRLAB on the aerobiome, studying the microbial diversity that inhabits the air, both indoors and outdoors (in the urban aerobiome but also in rural areas and up in the atmosphere).

I hold a BSc in Molecular Biotechnology from the University of Barcelona and a MSc in Bioinformatics with a specialization in Data Science from the Wageningen University & Research and a PhD in Biotechnology from the University of Barcelona.

I have previously worked on designing and implementing online courses on the EdX platform for the Educational Staff Development department in WUR, and as a Data Scientist in the R&D department of Dupont Nutrition & Biosciences, where we applied novel machine learning techniques to optimize the protein engineering process.

You can check my detailed CV for a more comprehensive overview of my professional experience.

I made this site using Quarto, an open source project that allows you to create documents, websites, and books using a combination of Markdown, R, Python and HTML.

I took it as a chance to improve my web development skills and tinker around with HTML/CSS and a tiny bit of JavaScript.

A lot of inspiration from other Quarto websites was taken to make this site. Mainly:

To check the source code, you can do so in Github. Please raise an issue if you notice something is wrong or not working as intended, as I might have overdone it with the CSS/JavaScript tinkering.

Education

PhD in Biotechnology, 2019-2024

Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

I did my PhD through the Universitat de Barcelona, but carried out my daily research at ISGlobal, within the Climate and Health group at the PRBB. I was funded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions doctoral grant under the HELICAL project, a European network of more than 15 institutions focused on computational approaches to study vasculitis onset.

My thesis was titled “Atmospheric characterization and time-series analysis of the impact of environmental factors on disease onset” and can be found here.
MSc in Bioinformatics, 2016-2018

Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands

During my MSc in Bioinformatics at Wageningen University & Research, I explored a wide range of computational biology topics: from R and (especially) Python programming, to systems biology, multiple omics fields, and data science subjects like machine learning, algorithmic development, and the usage of High Performance Computing (HPC).

For my thesis, I developed deep learning models to predict the subcellular localization of proteins, with an emphasis on making these models less of a black box. The thesis can be found here.
BSc in Biotechnology, 2011-2015

Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

I studied Biotechnology at Universitat de Barcelona, where I built a strong base in molecular biology, microbiology, and biochemistry, along with lab experience. By my final year I was already leaning toward the computational side of biology.

My thesis focused on transcriptomics, carrying out a meta-analysis of differential expression methods for microarray data.

Interests

  • Automation
  • Open Science
  • Reproducible Research
  • Data Visualisation
  • Machine Learning
  • Epidemiology
  • GIS