Skinner Laboratory

Matthew Settles, Ph.D.

MATTHEW LEE SETTLES

EDUCATION
Fall, 2008 PhD (expected) Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
· 4.0 GPA,
· University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
· Dissertation Topic: Meta-analysis of Microarray Gene Expression Data.
· Supervisor: Terence Soule, PhD and Barrie Robison, PhD
2005 M.S. Computer Science
· University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
· Specialization: Population Based Stochastic Optimization
· Thesis Title: Breeding Swarms: A Hybrid GA\PSO for Real Parameter Optimization.
· Supervisor: Terence Soule, PhD
2002 B.S. Electrical Engineering (magna cum laude), 3.7 GPA
· University of Portland, Portland, Oregon
· Computer Engineering Track
2000 Associates in Arts (honors)
· Engineering Transfer Program, Clark College, Vancouver, Washington


EXPERIENCE
8/2008-current Research Associate, Dr. Michael Skinner Labratory, School of Molecular Biology,
Washington State University, Pullman,WA
8/2008-current Research Associate, Dr. Holly Neigbergs, Department of Animal Sciences,
Washington State University, Pullman,WA
8/2008-current Manager, Bioinformatics Core,
Washington State University, Pullman,WA
8/2005-7/2007 Research Assistant, Fish Physiology and Genomics Research Group
University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho.
· Working on an NSF funded study of metabolism and physiology using salmonid and
zebrafish models.
· This work includes supporting a diverse team of biologists by the design and analysis
of microarray experiments.
8/2002-5/2005 Research Assistant, Neural Fuzzy Systems Research Group
University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho.
· Worked on an Idaho EPSCoR funded study of neural fuzzy networks.
· This work included the study and design of new algorithms to evolve and train recurrent
neural networks.
1/1996-2/2002 Engineering Technician
S.E.H. America, Vancouver, Washington.
· Supported an engineering group by designing and creating computer application tools
designed to automate common tasks and to transition from paper systems to electronic
systems.
· Applications were created using such tools as: Visual Basic, SQL Server, Oracle Server,
Access, Excel and Word.
· Contributed to the success of audits, customer tours, ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 audits.


GRANTS, HONORS AND AWARDS
April, 2008 United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Travel award, $2000 to attend and
present a poster to the ISAFG (International Symposium on Animal Functional Genomics)
conference in Edinburgh, UK, April 7-9, 2008.
September, 2006 Microarray Gene Expression Data Society Travel award, $800 to attend and present a
poster to the MGED9 conference in Seattle, Washington, Sept 7-10, 2006.
June, 2006 Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA) Graduate Student TravelAward,
$400 to attend the GECCO 2006 conference in Seattle, Washington, July 8-12, 2006.
May, 2006 Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA) 2006 Service to the University
Award for co-writing an accepted student fee proposal to use student fee moneys to
establish a Student Research and Scholarship Grant Program at the University of Idaho.
April, 2006 Cowrote an accepted proposal to establish a Student Research and Scholarship Grant
Program at the University of Idaho. $5.00/student (approximately $100,000 in year 1)
of student fee moneys will be used to establish and administer a Grant Program available
to all students at the University of Idaho. Grant money will be used to support
undergraduate and graduate student research and travel in the sciences and arts.
July, 2005 GECCO 2005 Graduate Student Travel Grant, $300 to attend and give a presentation at
the GECCO 2005 conference in Washington, D.C., June 25-29, 2006.


COMMITTEE INVOLVEMENT
3/2007 University of Idaho Strategic Action Plan - Invited member of a student panel on interdisciplinary
research.
8/2006-5/2007 University of Idaho Student Grant Program - College of Graduate Studies representative
and Committee Chair.
8/2005-5/2007 University of Idaho Graduate and Professional Student Association - Senator.


TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Spring, 2007 Instructor, BCB404: Special Topics: Bioinformatics Using R and Bioconductor
University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho.
· Developed curriculum, lab materials and taught the course.
Fall, 2005 Guest Lecturer, CS472/572: Evolutionary Computation
University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho.
· Three week guest lecturer on Particle Swarm Optimization, Breeding Swarm Optimization,
Multi-objective Optimization and Constraint Handling.

PRESENTATIONS AND INVITED LECTURES
August, 2006 IBEST Bioinformatics Workshop 2006, organizer and instructor on microarray analysis
using R/Bioconductor, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID.
March, 2006 Microarray Data Analysis for the Biologist, Bioinformatics Seminar, University of Idaho
Aquaculture Research Institute, Hagerman, ID.


RESEARCH INTERESTS
Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Microarray Analysis, Gene Networks, Breeding Swarm Optimization,
Particle Swarm Optimizers, Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming, Machine Learning, Artificial
Neural Networks.


M.S. THESIS ABSTRACT
Genetic Algorithms and Particles Swarm Optimization are both population based stochastic search algorithms
that have proven to be successful in solving very difficult problems. However, both models have
strengths and weaknesses. Previous researchers have suggested that a hybrid of the GA and PSO models
could lead to further advances. In this thesis we present a novel hybrid algorithm, Breeding Swarms, combining
the strengths of GAs with those of PSO. The Breeding Swarms algorithm improves search results
for real valued problems by controlling the amount of diversity in the population. We performed experiments
on optimizing standard benchmark functions and recurrent neural networks. Results show that the
Breeding Swarm algorithm produces significantly better results than either GA or PSO, scales well to large
problems and is more consistent over different problem domains.


PHD DISSERTATION ABSTRACT
Understanding the interactions between components of a biological system, or "systems biology", is an issue
that requires complex modeling methods. Most of these methods require more data than is currently
generated in the typical experiment, or will be generated in the near future. Combining data sets from
different sources and analysis from currently available data is one way of addressing this problem. The
development of algorithms and methods that facilitate the integration of different sources and perspectives
of biological data is needed for continued advancement in modeling systems level interactions. Gene
expression microarrays are a high-throughput technique to profiling genome wide transcription that is producing
input data for many modern systems level approaches. Methods that allow for the integration of
information from different sources and analysis of microarray data is the focus of this research.


REFEREED PUBLICATIONS
Robert E Drew, Kenneth J. Rodnick, Matthew L Settles, Jurij Wacyk, Erin J Churchill, Madison S. Powell,
Ronald W Hardy, Gordon K Murdoch, Rodney A. Hill, and Barrie D Robison Effect of Starvation on Gene
Expression in Multiple Tissues of Zebrafish. Physiol. Genomics (Accepted August 26, 2008)
Coram, T., Settles, M., Wang, M, Chen, X, Surveying expression level polymorphism and single-feature
polymorphism in near-isogenic wheat lines differing for the Yr5 stripe rust resistance locus. TAG Theoretical and
Applied Genetics, Volume 117, Number 3, August, 2008.
Barrie D. Robison, Robert E. Drew, Gordon K. Murdoch, Madison Powell, Kenneth J. Rodnick, Matt
Settles, David Stone, Erin Churchill, Rodney A. Hill, Madhusudhan R. Papasani, Solange S. Lewis, Ronald
W. Hardy, Sexual dimorphism in hepatic gene expression and the response to dietary carbohydrate manipulation in
the zebrafish (Danio rerio), Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part D: Genomics and ProteomicsVolume
3, Issue 2, , June 2008, Pages 141-154.
Coram, T., Settles, M., Chen, X, Transcriptome analysis of high-temperature adult-plant resistance conditioned
by Yr39 during the wheat-Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici interactio. Molecular Plant Pathology, Volume
9, Number 4, July, 2008.
Settles, M., Soule, T. Choosing an Algorithm: An Experimental Comparison of the Genetic Algorithm and
Binary Particle Swarm. Proceedings of the 17th IMACS World Congress on Scientific Computation, Applied
Mathematics and Simulation. Paris, France, 11-15 July 2005.
Settles, M., Soule, T. Breeding Swarms: A GA/PSO Hybrid. In Proceeding of the Genetic and Evolutionary
Computation Conference (GECCO-2005). Washington D.C., 25-29 June 2005. ASME Press
Settles, M., Nathan, P., Soule, T. Breeding Swarms: A New Approach to Recurrent Neural Network Training.
In Proceeding of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2005). Washington
D.C., 25-29 June 2005. ASME Press.
Settles, M., Soule, T. A Hybrid GA/PSO to Evolve Artificial Recurrent Neural Networks. C. Dagli and et
al., eds. In Intelligent Engineering Systems Through Artificial Neural Networks (ANNIE-2003), vol. 13,
pages 51-56, St. Louis, Missouri, 2-5 Nov. 2003. ASME Press.
Settles, M., and Rylander, B. Neural network learning using particle swarm optimizers. Zemliak, A. and
Mastorakis, N., eds. In Advances in Information Science and Soft Computing, pages 224-226. Cancun,
Mexico, June 2002. WSEAS Press.


PUBLISHED ABSTRACTS/REFEREED POSTERS
Matt Settles, et al., Whole Genome Association Study of Johne’s Disease. International Symposium on Animal
Functional Genomics (ISAFG), Edinburgh, UK, April 7-9, 2008. Poster
Sam S. Hunter, Matt Settles, James Foster, Deborah L. Stenkamp, Barrie Robison Generating gene coexpression
networks from zebrafish microarray data. Northwest Regional Developmental Biology Conference,
Friday Harbor Laboratories, San Juan Island, Washington, March 14-17, 2007. Poster
Settles, M., Soule, T. Feature Selection of Microarray Data Using Particle Swarm Optimization. Poster,
MGED9, Seattle, WA, Sept. 7-9, 2006. Published Abstract/Poster
Drew, R., Settles, M., Rodnick, K., Wyzac, J., Robison, B. Effects of Starvation on Zebrafish. Poster,
MGED9, Seattle, WA, Sept. 7-9, 2006. Published Abstract/Poster
Settles, M., Rodebaugh, B., Soule, T. Comparison of Genetic Algorithm and Particle Swarm Optimizer
When Evolving a Recurrent Neural Network. In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation
Conference (GECCO-2003), vol. 2723, pages 148-149. Chicago, Illinois, 12-15 July 2003. Springer Press.
Poster

MANUSCRIPTS IN REVIEW
Coram, T., Settles, M., Chen, X. Large-scale analysis of antisense transcription in wheat using the Affymetrix
GeneChip Wheat Genome Array. Submitted to BMC Plant Biology, Sept. 2008.


MANUSCRIPTS IN PREPARATION
Settles, M., Soule, T. Breeding Swarms: A PSO/GA for Real Parameter Optimization. To be submitted to IEEE
Transactions on Evolutionary Computation.
Settles, M., Soule, T., Robison, B. The Effects of Single Feature Polymorphisms on Gene Expression Summarization.
To be submitted Bioinformatics.
Settles, M., Soule, T., Murdock, G., Robison, B. On Normalizing Microarrays from Multiple Tissue Types
To be submitted BMC Bioinformatics.
Settles, M., Zanella, R., Neigbergs, H. Whole Genome Association Analysis of Johne’s Disease in 4 US dairys using
the Illumina BovineSNP50 50k SNP chip. To be submitted to Journal of Animal Genomics.
Settles, M., Lucker, B., Guerrero-Bosagna, C., Skinner, M. Comparison of IP/Input and IP/IP for Methylation
Analysis using Nimblegen Tiling Arrays. To be submitted to Genomics.
Guerrero-Bosagna, C., Settles, M., Lucker, B., Skinner, M. Epigenetic and Transgenerational Actions of Vinclozolin
on the Rat Epigenome.


TECHNICAL SKILLS
General skills in computing, algorithm development and statistics. Specific expertise and interests in:
· Computing platforms: Mac OS X, UNIX, Windows XP.
· Programming Languages: Extensive experience with C,C++ and R as a programming language; familiar
with Java, HTML and many others.
· Statistical Software: Extensive experience in R and Bioconductor; moderate experience with SAS.
· Scientific text writing and formatting: Extensive experience in LATEX.


PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
Tau Beta Pi, Engineering Honor Society
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Special Interest Group on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (SIGEVO)

Skinner Laboratory, PO Box 644234, Washington State University, Pullman WA 99164-4234, 509-335-1524, Contact Us