Michael Waterman

Education and early life Waterman grew up near Bandon, Oregon,

Research and career Waterman is one of the founders and current leaders in the area of computational biology. He focuses on applying mathematics, statistics, and computer science techniques to various problems in molecular biology. His work has contributed to some of the most widely used tools in the field. In particular, the Smith-Waterman algorithm (developed with Temple F. Smith) is the basis for many sequence alignment programs. In 1988, Waterman and Eric Lander published a landmark paper describing a mathematical model for fingerprint mapping. This work formed one of the theoretical cornerstones for many of the later DNA mapping and sequencing projects, especially the Human Genome Project. A 1995 paper by Idury and Waterman introduced Eulerian-De Bruijn sequence assembly which is widely used in next-generation sequencing projects.

With Pavel A. Pevzner (a former postdoctoral researcher in his lab), he began the international conference Research in Computational Molecular Biology (RECOMB), and he is a founding editor of the Journal of Computational Biology. Waterman also authored one of the earliest textbooks in the field: Introduction to Computational Biology.

Awards and honors With Cyrus Chothia and David Haussler, Waterman was awarded the 2015 Dan David Prize for his contributions to the field of bioinformatics. of a childhood spent on an isolated livestock ranch on the southern coast of Oregon in the mid-20th century.