Steven A. Lewis

Steven A. Lewis has a passion for research, which makes the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences the right place to pursue his work.

“The Jacobs School has been a great fit for me. What brought me here was knowing that the school had a doctoral program in biomedical sciences,” Lewis says. “I knew I wanted to rotate within departments to find the place that suited me and the research I was interested in. It’s been a great learning experience.”

He found the right spot as a trainee in the doctoral program in computational cell biology, anatomy and pathology (CCBAP).

“My particular program is really novel and intriguing,” says Lewis, a native of Olean, New York. “They push you to have a computational element as well as an element that relates to biology. That expands your skill set as a graduate student to go above and beyond what you’re capable of.”

Lewis was also looking for the right lab to do his research and the right mentor and he found both when a position opened up with Scott T. Doyle, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences.

“I knew I wanted to learn coding and programing skills. I’ve really enjoyed studying with Dr. Doyle and him being my mentor,” Lewis says. “He started me off with a basic project called multi-organ segmentation, where I take CT scans and create an algorithm to extract anatomical structures from them. I have expanded that project out to where I have multiple other aims.”

“My research is focused on designing algorithms to incorporate deep learning into gross anatomy education,” adds Lewis, who earned degrees in biochemistry and sociology as an undergraduate from Nazareth College in Rochester, New York.

He plans to build upon his research after earning his doctoral degree.

“My goal is to go into academia, where I am going to research various mental illnesses and their impact on the anatomical structure of the brain,” Lewis says.