Michael Wendl is one of the original Human Genome Project scientists and applies mathematical & statistical theory to important problems in medicine and engineering. He works to rapidly advance the science of cancer genomics, from signal analysis of raw genome sequencing and proteomics data, to inferential analysis and model building, to clinical translation. Dr. Wendl is a proponent of math/science literacy for the general public and active in policy issues related to education, including through the Wendl Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity promoting and funding educational opportunities for disadvantaged children within the St Louis Metro Area.

Personal Information

General information

Past/Present Faculty Affiliations: Dept. of Medicine, Dept. of Genetics, Dept. of Mathematics, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Li Ding Cancer Laboratory, McDonnell Genome Institute, and WU/UMSL Joint Engineering Program all at
Washington University
NEWS: ASME, AMS, SIAM, Chronicle of Higher Ed., APS, Nature, Science, Stl Post, Google

Links

UTILITY: Web of Science, Gaussian P-val, Desmos, Wolfram-alpha integration tool, MyCurveFit, WebPlotDigitizer, JSTOR, NIH biosketch, gnuplot demos, PostgreSQL manual, ProteinPaint, Libre Math Texts
University Internals (password req'd): Wustl GPT AI, Canvas, Zoom, WebFac, WU-Box, Lab Hiring, CCG-GDAN, PE-CGS, Manuscript Submission Archive, Disk Management, LLS SCOR, Inventory, RPPRs, Wustl One, WorkDay, WeeblyLogin, lab wiki
A note to prospective graduate students: I get many emails asking me to serve as a PhD advisor. At WashU, new students must matriculate through the DBBS, so your application should start there. I wish you the best of luck, but unfortunately am no longer able to reply to your individual request.

Q & A

Here are answers to questions I sometimes get. This might save time before you contact me.
  • Q: I would like to join you as a graduate student. May I apply or visit the lab? Ans: Graduate students are not admitted/hired directly by faculty at Washington University School of Medicine, but rather matriculate through the University's Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences. Your application should start there.
  • Q: I have ground-breaking results on X. May I send a manuscript to you, or can we collaborate, or publish an article? Ans: Because of my heavy research and teaching obligations, I unfortunately have no additional time to take on new collabortions.
  • Q: Are you related to the mathematician Chris Wendl at Berlin University? Ans: No, not as far as I know.
  • Q: Will you play your accordion for us in class? Ans: Apologies, but no. We have too much material to cover. Plus, there have been complaints in the past.
  • Q: May I cite Wikipedia? Ans: No, because it is not a reliable source of information, even ironically according to itself (see also its own articles on Criticism of Wikipedia and Reliability of Wikipedia). One of its biggest liabilities is lack of a central authority to enforce minimal standards and to eliminate the broad-based activism that pervades the choice of articles and their respective contents.

collision probability visualization

Sten Kultakangas made this nifty visualization of the collision probability for the special case N = 2 of the general solution from Collision Probability Between Sets of Random Variables (Wendl, 2003). This image is used in the Wikipedia article on the Birthday problem (another application of this class of combinatorial probability problems) and I recently wrote an expository article on another variation applicable to blocking spam communication for Chalkdust magazine.

contact information

Michael C Wendl
Debra and George Couch Biomedical Research Building, Washington University
660 South Euclid Avenue, Mail Stop 8076-0041-03
St Louis MO 63110
You may have reached this page by mistake. Mine is not a terribly common name, but there are a number of other folks online with the name "Michael Wendl". I am not any of the people below.
About Contacting Me: I get lots of e-mail, most of which is automatically filtered. If you are a student and I have not responded, please re-send your message from your university email account to by-pass the spam filter. The best way to reach me for anything important is US (postal) mail. I do not accept LinkedIn requests from those I don't know, nor from current students (because of obvious problems of appearance). Apologies for any inconvenience.