Rate My Professor David Haussler

David Haussler is a Distinguished Professor of Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, serving as Scientific Director of the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute. He earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1982, an MS in Applied Mathematics from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in 1979, and a BA in Mathematics magna cum laude from Connecticut College in 1975. Haussler's academic career at UC Santa Cruz began in 1986 as Assistant Professor of Computer Science, progressing to Associate Professor in 1989, Professor in 1993, and Distinguished Professor in 2005. Earlier, he was Assistant Professor at the University of Denver from 1982 to 1986. His research at the interface of mathematics, computer science, and molecular biology develops statistical and algorithmic methods to explore molecular function, evolution of the human genome, neural circuit development, gene regulation, and cancer biomarkers. Pioneering applications include hidden Markov models, stochastic context-free grammars, and discriminative kernel methods for DNA, RNA, and protein sequence analysis. As a collaborator on the Human Genome Project, his team posted the first publicly available computational assembly of the human genome on the Internet in 2000 and created the UCSC Genome Browser, widely used in biomedical research.

Haussler co-founded the Genome 10K Project (now Vertebrate Genomes Project), Global Alliance for Genomics and Health, BRCA Exchange, Treehouse Childhood Cancer Project, and contributed to the Human Pangenome Reference. His experimental work employs CRISPR, cerebral cortex organoids, and single-cell RNA-seq for neurodevelopmental genes. Key publications include 'Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome' (Nature, 2001), 'The human genome browser at UCSC' (Genome Research, 2002), 'Initial sequencing and comparative analysis of the mouse genome' (Nature, 2002), and 'An integrated encyclopedia of DNA elements in the human genome' (Nature, 2012). Honors include membership in the National Academy of Sciences (2006), National Academy of Engineering (2018), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006), Fellowships in AAAS (2002) and AAAI (1992), Dan David Prize (2015), Weldon Memorial Prize (2011), ASHG Curt Stern Award (2009), ISCB Senior Scientist Accomplishment Award (2008), Dickson Prize (2005), ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Award (2003), and UC Santa Cruz Lifetime Achievement in Innovation (2023) and National Academy of Inventors Fellow (2025). He has held editorial roles for journals including Machine Learning and PLoS Computational Biology.