Talia Dalton comes to the St. Jude Graduate School after earning a degree in bioinformatics from Wheaton College. The Andover, Minn., native is passionate about using single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to study human disease, particularly pediatric cancer. She is also interested in the spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) research St. Jude does.
Her previous work applied scRNA-seq and bioinformatics pipelines to study cross-species transcriptomic alignment of retinal cell types, and she is eager to bring these computational skills to the study of human genomic data and disease.
Dalton completed a senior honors thesis at Wheaton College titled "Cross-Species Transcriptomic Alignment of Retinal Cell Types in Mouse, Chicken, and Zebrafish Following Injury" (May 2026), advised by Dr. Andrew Davinack, in collaboration with the Comparative Genomics and Data Science Core at MDIBL. She also gained healthcare industry experience as a Revenue Cycle Management Intern at Variantyx Inc., where she reviewed medical records and managed prior authorizations for genetic testing, and served as a Personal Care Assistant throughout her undergraduate years.
On campus, Dalton was active in Women in STEM as a treasurer, served as a Peer Advisor and Athletic Mentor, and competed on the varsity swim and dive team, earning NEWMAC All-Sportsmanship and Academic All-Conference honors.
Growing up, Dalton’s mother was a genetic counselor, driving her to develop a deep appreciation for the role that genomics plays in understanding and treating disease, and for the impact that institutions like St. Jude have on children and families facing devastating diagnoses. She joins the Applied Biomedical Data Sciences program at the St. Jude Graduate School because it offers the ideal environment to develop her computational skills and apply them directly to pediatric disease research. St. Jude's mission-driven culture and unparalleled resources make it the place where she wants to grow as a data scientist and contribute to work that truly matters.
Hometown: Andover, Minnesota
Education:
2026 BA, Bioinformatics, Wheaton College
Awards/Honors/Scholarships:
2026 Departmental Honors (Bioinformatics), Wheaton College
2025 NSF REU Fellow, Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory
2024-26 Academic All-Conference, New England Men’s and Women’s Athletic Conference