Ellis Torrance

Biography

Ellis Torrance is currently a postdoctoral researcher in organization 08623. In her research she develops and utilizes computational tools focused on identifying, better describing, and understanding the underlying evolutionary mechanisms of mobile genetic elements (such as prophages) and their boundaries of transfer across prokaryotes. Ellis earned her PhD in Environmental Health Science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she predicted rates of DNA transfer across bacteria as a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellow (DOE CSGF).

Education

• Ph.D., Environmental Health Science – Concentration: Computational Biology
  University of North Carolina at Greensboro: Greensboro, NC
  September 2019-2023
• B.S. Biology – Concentration: Molecular Biology with Minor in Chemistry
  Portland State University: Portland, Oregon
  Fall 2015 – Summer 2017
• A.S. Biology – Transfer Degree
  Portland Community College: Tigard, Oregon
  Winter 2013 –Summer 2015
• A.S. Allied Health
  Columbia Community College: Columbia, California
  Fall 2009 – Spring 2012

Publications

Ellis L Torrance, Awa Diop, Louis-Marie Bobay, Homologous recombination shapes the architecture and evolution of bacterial genomes, Nucleic Acids Research, Volume 53, Issue 4, 28 February 2025, gkae1265, https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkae1265

Ellis L. Torrance, Corey Burton, Awa Diop, Louis-Marie Bobay “Evolution of Homologous Recombination Rates Across Bacteria” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) vol. 121(19), https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2316302121

Awa Diop, Ellis L. Torrance, Caroline M. Stott, Louis-Marie Bobay “Gene flow and
introgression are pervasive forces shaping the evolution of bacterial species.” Genome biology vol. 23,1 239. 10 Nov. 2022, DOI:10.1186/s13059-022-02809-5

Alyssa A. Pratt, Ellis L. Torrance, George W. Kasun, Kenneth M. Stedman & Ignacio de la Higuera. StemLoop-Finder: a Tool for the Detection of DNA Hairpins with Conserved
Motifs. Microbiology Resource Announcements July 2021, 10(26), e0042421.
https://doi.org/10.1128/MRA.00424-21

Connor D Harris, Ellis L. Torrance, Kasie Raymann, Louis-Marie Bobay. CoreCruncher: Fast and Robust Construction of Core Genomes in Large Prokaryotic Data Sets, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 38, Issue 2, February 2021, Pages 727–734, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaa224

Ignacio de la Higuera, George W. Kasun, Ellis L. Torrance, Alyssa A. Pratt, Amberlee Maluenda, Jonathan Colombet, Maxime Bisseux, Viviane Ravet, Anisha Dayaram, Daisy Stainton, Simona Kraberger, Peyman Zawar-Reza, Sharyn Goldstien, James V. Briskie, Robyn White, Helen Taylor, Christopher Gomez, David G. Ainley, Jon S. Harding, Rafaela S. Fontenele, Joshua Schreck, Simone G. Ribeiro, Stephen A. Oswald, Jennifer M. Arnold, François Enault, Arvind Varsani, Kenneth M. Stedman,
Unveiling Crucivirus Diversity by Mining Metagenomic Data, mBio Sep 2020, 11 (5) e01410-20; DOI: 10.1128/mBio.01410-20

Ignacio De la Higuera, Ellis L. Torrance., Alyssa A. Pratt, George W. Kasun., Amber Maluenda., Kenneth M. Stedman. Genome Sequences of Three Cruciviruses Found in the Willamette Valley (Oregon). Microbiology Resource Announcements 2019, 8(23), e00447-19.; DOI: 10.1128/MRA.00447-19

Research Interests

Evolution, Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, HPC, Python, Machine Learning, Parallel Processing, Biosecurity, Bio-economy, Bacteria, Microbiology, Bio-remediation, Antibiotic Resistance, Phage Therapy

Awards

• U.S. Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellow (DOE CSGF) 2020-2024
• Communicate Your Science and Engineering Essay Contest First Place (2021) https://www.krellinst.org/doecsgf/docs/deixis/deixis2021.pdf#page=5
• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Program (NSF GRFP) Honorable Mention 2019
• Ronald E. McNair Undergraduate Fellow 2017-2018