David Haussler

David Haussler
David Haussler. Photo by Ron Jones.
Born	October 1953 (1953-10) (age 63)
Nationality	United States
Fields	Genomics Computer science Molecular biology Evolution Cancer
Institutions	University of California, Santa Cruz
Alma mater	Connecticut College University of Colorado at Boulder
Thesis	Insertion and iterated insertion as operations on formal language (1982)
Doctoral advisor	Andrzej Ehrenfeucht
Doctoral students	Yoav Freund Adam Siepel
Other notable students	Jim Kent Anders Krogh
Known for	Hidden Markov models Human Genome Project
Notable awards	Weldon Memorial Prize (2011) Curt Stern Award (2009) Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award (2008) Dickson Prize (2005) Allen Newell Award in Artificial Intelligence (2003) Dan David Prize (2015)
Website genomics.soe.ucsc.edu/haussler www.hhmi.org/scientists/david-haussler

David Haussler (born 1953) is the Scientific Director of the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute and an American bioinformatician known for his trailblazing work leading the team that assembled the first human genome sequence in the race to complete the Human Genome Project. He is subsequently known for comparative genome analysis that deepens understanding the molecular function and He is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, professor of biomolecular engineering and director of the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, director of the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) on the UC Santa Cruz campus, and a consulting professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the UC San Francisco Biopharmaceutical Sciences Department.

Haussler studied art briefly at the Academy of Art in San Francisco in 1971 and then psychotherapy at Immaculate Heart College in Hollywood until 1973, when he transferred to Connecticut College, finishing in 1975 with a major in mathematics and minor in physics. He earned an MS in applied mathematics from California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo in 1979. Haussler received his PhD in computer science from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1982.

During summers while he was in college, Haussler worked for his brother, Mark Haussler, a biochemist at the University of Arizona studying vitamin D metabolism. They were the first to measure the levels of 1alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, the hormonal form of vitamin D, in the human bloodstream. Between 1975 and 1979 he traveled and worked a variety of jobs, including a job at a petroleum refinery in Burghausen, Germany, tomato farming on Crete, and farming kiwifruit, almonds, and walnuts in Templeton, CA. While in Templeton he worked on his Master's degree at nearby California Polytechnic University.