Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science

E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: (616) 331-7839
Office: DCIH 530L
Website: Github

Education
Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and Biochemistry, Van Andel Institute, 2020
B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 2015

Dr. Zachary DeBruine is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Grand Valley State University (GVSU). His research lies at the intersection of machine learning and genomics, with a focus on building multimodal machine learning models, developing foundation models for genomics data, and creating large language model (LLM) solutions that interpret complex genomic information through natural language. Dr. DeBruine leads a vibrant research lab that includes over ten undergraduate and graduate students working on multiple funded projects. He enjoys mentoring students through product development, manuscript writing, and real-world problem solving.
 
He is an active member of both the Human Cell Atlas Network and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Network and serves on GVSU’s University R&D Committee. Dr. DeBruine is also the founder and CEO of Herd Social, a company that builds social networking solutions for the rare disease community. His contributions to teaching and scholarship have been recognized through the GVSU Distinguished Early-Career Scholar Award and the Graduate Student Association’s Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award.
 
Outside of academia, he finds joy in gravel biking, winemaking, playing piano and organ, and spending time outdoors with his wife and four young children.

Wolfgang, S., Ruiter, S., Tunnell, M., Triche, T., Carrier, E., & DeBruine, Z. (2024). Value-Compressed Sparse Column (VCSC): Sparse Matrix Storage for Single-cell Omics Data. 2024 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (BigData), 4952–4958. https://doi.org/10.1109/BigData62323.2024.10825091

Buteyn, N. J., Burke, C. G., Sartori, V. J., Deering-Gardner, E., DeBruine, Z. J., Kamarudin, D., Chandler, D. P., Monovich, A. C., Perez, M. W., Yi, J. S., Ries, R. E., Alonzo, T. A., Ryan, R. J., Meshinchi, S., & Triche, T. J. (2024). EZH2-driven immune evasion defines high-risk pediatric AML with t(16;21) FUS::ERG gene fusion. Cancer Biology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.05.14.594150

DeBruine, Z. J., Andrew Pospisilik, J., & Triche, T. J. (2024). Fast and interpretable non-negative matrix factorization for atlas-scale single cell data. bioRxiv, 2021-09.

Ruiter, S., Wolfgang, S., Tunnell, M., Triche, T., Carrier, E., & DeBruine, Z. (2023). Value-Compressed Sparse Column (VCSC): Sparse Matrix Storage for Redundant Data (Version 1). arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2309.04355

We have over 10 students working on three funded research projects this year. Each team meets weekly, with 1:1s as needed. We collaborate to build products, write manuscripts, and solve real-world problems. Good mix of undergraduate and graduate students with diverse skillsets. You are welcome to chat about opportunities!

Please email me anytime to schedule a chat about research! We have projects ranging from deep learning with Pytorch on our HPC to building LLM agents and web development.