Seeing Between the Numbers with Population Biology Graduate Group Student Vince Buffalo
After graduating from UC Davis in 2009 with a B.A. in Economics and Political Science and a minor in Statistics, Vince Buffalo planned on using his statistical knowledge to study rare political phenomena, like war and state failure. While such disruptive political events are difficult to predict, Buffalo was fascinated by the idea of using statistical models to better anticipate them.
“That was the plan and what ended up happening was that I needed a job before applying to graduate school, and I heard there was a position in the Bioinformatics Core Facility at the UC Davis Genome Center,” said Buffalo.
Fond of mathematics and computer programming, Buffalo didn’t have much of a biology background save for a course he took in high school and a deep love of nature. Still, he applied for the job and secured an interview.