David Heckerman

Biography

David Heckerman, M.D., PhD., is HLI’s Chief Data Scientist who leads an advanced analytics team at the company’s Mountain View, CA, office. He and his team are tackling some of the most important challenges in the analysis of large-scale medical and genomic data. Prior to joining HLI, Dr. Heckerman had a 25-year career as a Microsoft researcher which included leading the company’s first research team to focus on machine learning and produce tools such as the first content-based spam filter. Later, he led the first research team to focus on computational biology, designing a vaccine for HIV as well as many algorithms for biology and health, with increasing emphasis over time on genomics. For the last several years, Heckerman has led the Microsoft Genomics team, advancing research in genomics and computational biology and supporting Microsoft cloud services for genomics. Throughout his roles at Microsoft, Dr. Heckerman served in a series of academic positions, including Visiting Senior Research Scientist at the Data Science Institute of Columbia University, Affiliate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Health Education at University of Washington, and Adjunct Professor at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He holds several degrees from Stanford University and UCLA, including M.D., Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford, and M.S. and B.S. in Physics, and B.S in Mathematics, from UCLA. He is an ACM and AAAI fellow.

Research Interest

omputational biology, designing a vaccine for HIV as well as many algorithms for biology and health, with increasing emphasis over time on genomics