Dr. Michael Schatz is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Biology at Johns Hopkins University. His main research interest is to understand the structure and function of genomes, especially those of medical or agricultural importance. To accomplish this, his work works at the intersection of computer science, biology, and biotechnology, where he and his research lab have developed several pioneering algorithms and computational systems for comparative genomics, human genetics, and personalized medicine.

Schatz grew up in upstate New York where he cultivated a deep personal interest into computer science and technology, including writing his first software programs as an elementary school student. He began his formal training in 1996, where he enrolled into the computer science program at Carnegie Mellon University, and completed his BS in 2000. After CMU, he joined The Institute of Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville Maryland where he developed new software tools to study the genomes of plant, animal and microbial species. In 2010 he defended his PhD from the University of Maryland and joined the faculty at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and in 2016, Schatz moved to Johns Hopkins University as a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, where he collaborates with colleagues and students across the Schools of Engineering, Arts & Science, Medicine, and Public Health.

Today Schatz coleads the Epigenome Sciences cluster at Johns Hopkins University, which aims to understand the fundamental principles of genome and epigenome biology through state-of-the-art computational and experimental tools. He also serves as Program Director for the NHGRI Analysis, Visualization, and Informatics Lab-Space (AnVIL), which aims to advance our understanding of human genetics through advanced machine learning and data science tools. AnVIL currently stores the genomic data from nearly one million donors, and has empowered major analyses into the genetic basis of several major diseases as well as a deeper understanding of human genetic diversity. He also serves as Program Director for the Galaxy Project, which aims to promote accessible and reproductible research in genomics across the tree of life and other data intensive sciences, and serves as PI for several projects from the National Cancer Institute, the National Science Foundation, the Lustgarten Foundation, the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research, and other agencies.

For his work, Schatz has been recognized through several major awards. In 2015, Schatz received the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship for his work developing computational methods to probe the genetic components of autism and cancer, and in 2014 Schatz received the NSF CAREER award to develop computational methods to study plant and animal genomes using new single molecule DNA sequencing technologies. More recently, for his work completing the first telomere-to-telomere (T2T) human genome, Schatz, along with T2T coleads Drs. Adam Phillippy, Karen Miga, and Evan Eichler, was named by TIME magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022 (TIME100). Schatz is also a passionate educator and community builder who leads several efforts to grow and diversify the genomics data science community, and has been recognized through institutional teaching awards at both Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Johns Hopkins University.

More information is available on his lab website: http://schatz-lab.org