Caterina Cevallos grew up in both Ecuador and Costa Rica. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Physics from the University of Costa Rica, where her early research focused on accelerating DFTB-based quantum mechanical simulations using GPUs.
Driven by her fondness for programming, she transitioned into Bioinformatics to explore a new set of questions in human genetics. For her Master’s thesis at the University of Bologna she developed a deep-learning-based epigenetic clock for estimating age and age acceleration from DNA methylation data.
In 2023 she joined Kutalik’s and Reymond’s labs to work at the intersection of statistical and Mendelian genetics, where she studies the interplay between rare and common genetic variants in the general population and how they modulate complex traits.
Outside of research, she enjoys dancing (salsa, bachata and ballet), hiking and cycling around campus.