Once Reza Mazloom has completed his Ph.D. in computer science, he plans to pursue a career in the biotech sector, focusing on research and development of computational solutions to biological problems. 

His area of research focuses on the classification and identification of bacterial genomes. For example, the tools he has developed can help identify the specific bacteria present in a sample taken from a human gut. Similarly, if a plant or animal is diseased and the bacterial DNA can be isolated and sequenced, a publicly available website which he designed as part of his Ph.D. research, can identify the bacteria with high precision, even down to the strain level. 

“This means it can distinguish between closely related variants of the same species, which is crucial for understanding differences in behavior, such as antibiotic resistance or pathogenicity,” said Mazloom, co-advised by Lenwood Heath at the Sanghani Center and Boris A. Vinatzer at the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences. “With enough public data, the platform can also track the global spread of specific strains to help researchers and health professionals monitor outbreaks and transmission patterns.” 

He became interested in computational biology because the biological environment around us plays a crucial role in our lives.

“While its general effects are somewhat understood, the specific interactions remain largely unknown due to the vast and complex web of interconnected factors. I wanted to contribute to simplifying a part of this complexity by enabling targeted identification of bacteria using computational techniques,” he said. “This approach complements existing manual methods and helps expand the availability of information, ultimately supporting more informed health decisions.” 

His published research includes: 

·      “Genotypic and Phenotypic Analyses Show Ralstonia solanacearum Cool Virulence Is a Quantitative Trait Not Restricted to ‘Race 3 Biovar 2,’” in Phytopathology Journal, December 2024       

·      "LINgroups as a robust principled approach to compare and integrate multiple bacterial taxonomies," in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, November-December 2024

·      “Genomic delineation and description of species and within-species lineages in the genus Pantoea,” in Frontiers in Microbiology, November 2023

·      “Meta-analysis of the Ralstonia solanacearum species complex (RSSC) based on comparative evolutionary genomics and reverse ecology," in Microbial Genomics, March 2022

In addition, Mazloom has most recently presented:

·      "Genome-based identification of Pantoea at within-species resolution using the GenomeRxiv web server" at the  Pantoea 2025 conference

·      "Automated analysis of pathogen genomes using Pathogen Surveillance and the genomeRxiv web server" at a workshop and in a poster session at Plant Health 2025

·      "Genome-based Identification of Prokaryotic Plant Pathogens at Within-Species Resolution Using the genomeRxiv Web Server" in a poster session at the 2025 CeZAP Infectious Disease Research Symposium

Mazloom said he has benefitted from the university’s bioinformatics center and the many different professors who focus on computational biology applications.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer software engineering from the University of Staffordshire, England; and a master’s degree in computer science from Kansas State University.   

He is projected to graduate from Virginia Tech in May 2026.