Sarah Szvetecz

PhD Student

Sarah Szvetecz
  • MS in Applied Biostatistics, Boston University 
  • BS in Statistics, James Madison University 

Sarah Szvetecz is a doctoral student in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University, based in Boston. She is advised by Olga Vitek. 

Szvetecz is a computational biologist who has been interested in cancer research ever since her undergraduate internship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. After getting her master’s degree in applied biostatistics, she spent three years with the Oncology Data Science group at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, where she analyzed and interpreted high-dimensional biological data to inform pre-clinical target ID and oncology drug discovery projects. Szvetecz then made the hard decision to leave a job she loved to study statistical method development for biological data at Khoury College, where she began her doctorate in 2023. 

Szvetecz’s current project evaluates statistical methods used to detect curve shifts that correspond to protein target engagement. She also explores how different experimental designs could improve reproducibility in chemoproteomics experiments, which help us identify new drug targets and off-target drug effects. Szvetecz is passionate about her work because she cares deeply about making scientific methods reproducible and accessible for the greater science community. 

In her free time, Szvetecz enjoys yoga, thrifting, and studying at neighborhood coffee shops.