Afsaneh M. Nejad
Current position(s)
10/2025-Present Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science (IMADA), SDU, Denmark.
Previous positions
08/2024-09/2025 Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science (IMADA), SDU, Denmark.
12/2021-08/2024 Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health, Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography (EBB), SDU, Denmark.
Education
2021 PhD in Computational Biology, Department of Public Health, EBB, SDU, Denmark
2017 Master of Applied Mathematics, IMADA, SDU, Denmark
Grants and awards
100,000 DKK: SDU Climate Cluster fast track grant, where I am collaborator. My role: Together with two other researchers from Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute and Green Technology on a proof-of-concept using AI to map hospital material flows and waste data to drive circular healthcare. Project title: Bridging Data Gaps: AI for Circular Healthcare Waste Management. Project period: 11/2025-10/2026.
40,000 DKK: My personal part from a DFF project 1, where I am collaborator. My role: Statistical advisor for a Postdoc and a PhD student; Project title: Structural knee joint changes following meniscal surgery compared with exercise in young adults – Does treatment type impact later osteoarthritis risk? (The DREAM trial), Project period: 07/2023-07/2024.
Contributions to the research community
Chaired session at leading conference: Integrative Data Analysis in Systems Biology, at IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BIBM), Madrid, Spain (2018).
I peer-reviewed for: BMC Medicine; European Journal of Epidemiology; Frontiers in Immunology; Clinical Epigenetics; Scientific reports; Human Genomics; Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences; BMC Medical Genomics; Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
Selected Invited talk:
Association of cancer with frailty at old age in the longitudinal study of aging, International Society of Geriatric Oncology, Montreal, Canada, October 2024.
Generalized correlation coefficient for model-free analysis of Omics data, Online seminar, Technical University of Munich, Germany, Dec 2019.
Network-based analysis of omics data, Seminar on Big Data in Systems and Network Medicine at SDU,Denmark, Nov 2019.
Weighted gene co-expression network analysis of microarray mRNA expression profiling in response to electroacupuncture, International Conference BIBM, Madrid, Spain, 2018.
Supervision and Teaching
Supervision (currently/total)
2019-Present: master students (4/20), mentoring PhD student (1/4), co-supervising PhD student (1), mentoring Postdoc (1)
01/2021-08/2024: Biostatistical supervision service in EBB at SDU: Provided computational, methodological and interpretational consultations in research projects for PhD students and researchers in health Science (consultant) (approx. 185 hours)
Current teaching:
• Master course since 2025: Data Mining and Machine Learning (DM868/DM870/DS804/DSK804)
• Master course since 2024: Introduction to Bioinformatics (DM847/MM552)
Previous teaching:
• Master course 2022-2023: Introduction to Basic Biostatistical Concepts and Regression (DS812)
• Master course 2022-2024: General Regression Models (survival and longitudinal data) (DS818)
• Master course 2023: Evidensbaseret lægemiddelanvendelse og biostatistik – Biostatistik
• PhD course 2021-2024: Biostatistics II (Lecturer and course director)
• PhD course 2022: Mixed models in Health Science
• Master course 2023-2024: Applied Biostatistics (Invited lecturer)
• PhD course 2022-2023: Advanced Biostatistical methods in Health Sciences: a bootcamp course
• PhD course 2018: Design and analysis of epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS)
(Invited lecturer. Giving lecture about Weighted gene correlation network analysis)
• PhD course 2017: Analysis of microarray gene expression data (Teaching assistant)