Gustavo A. Stolovitzky is an Argentine-American computational systems biologist. He is an

IBM Fellow An IBM Fellow is an appointed position at IBM made by IBM's CEO. Typically only four to nine (eleven in 2014) IBM Fellows are appointed each year, in May or June. Fellow is the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM can achie ...

and the Director of the Translational Systems Biology and Nano-Biotechnology Program at

IBM Research IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research or ...

. He serves as the program director of the Thomas J. Watson Research Center's Translational Systems Biology and

Nanobiotechnology Nanobiotechnology, bionanotechnology, and nanobiology are terms that refer to the intersection of nanotechnology and biology. Given that the subject is one that has only emerged very recently, bionanotechnology and nanobiotechnology serve as blan ...

Program, as well as an

Adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the gener ...

Genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar worki ...

and Genomic Sciences at the

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS or Mount Sinai), formerly the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, is a private medical school in New York City. It is the academic teaching arm of the Mount Sinai Health System, which manages eig ...

and an Adjunct Associate Professor of

Biomedical Informatics Health informatics is the field of science and engineering that aims at developing methods and technologies for the acquisition, processing, and study of patient data, which can come from different sources and modalities, such as electronic hea ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

. His research has been cited more than 20,000 times Stolovitzky is a co-founder of the

Dialogue for Reverse Engineering Assessments and Methods DREAM Challenges (Dialogue for Reverse Engineering Assessment and Methods) is a non-profit initiative for advancing biomedical and systems biology research via crowd-sourced competitions. Started in 2006, DREAM challenges collaborate with Sage Bi ...

(DREAM). DREAM is an international collaborative effort to recognize effective methods in systems biology and consists of more than 15,000 participants. Stolovitzky won the

award for pioneering the use of

crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...

for research in

computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of data analysis, mathematical modeling and computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer science, biology, and big data, the field also has fo ...

Career

Stolovitzky received his M.Sc. in physics from the

University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires ( es, Universidad de Buenos Aires, UBA) is a public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Established in 1821, it is the premier institution of higher learning in the country and one of the most prestigi ...

in 1987, and his PhD in mechanical engineering from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

in 1994. In 1998, Stolovitzky joined IBM Research to work in the field of computational systems biology; he has since become the director of IBM's Translational Systems Biology and Nano-Biotechnology Program. He is also an adjunct professor at

and a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Studies in Physics and Biology at

The Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a Private university, private Medical research, biomedical Research university, research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York (state), New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medica ...

. In 2005, Stolovitzky and

Jared Roach Jared C. Roach is an American biologist who invented the pairwise end sequencing strategy while a graduate student at the University of Washington. Education and early career Roach attended Cornell University, where he received his Bachelor ...

developed sophisticated methods for the analysis of Massively Parallel Signature Sequencing (MPSS) data. In 2008, he was a visiting scholar at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

. Solovitztky has advocated the usage of

as a tool for

scientific research The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific ...

Recognition

Stolovitzky has received the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corporation (HENAAC)'s Pioneer Award for Great Minds in STEM and the

World Technology Award In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the wor ...

in Biotechnology in 2013, and the Raíces Prize from the Argentinian government in 2017. Stolovitzky is also a member of the IBM Academy of Technology and has been inducted as a Fellow of the

New York Academy of Sciences The New York Academy of Sciences (originally the Lyceum of Natural History) was founded in January 1817 as the Lyceum of Natural History. It is the fourth oldest scientific society in the United States. An independent, nonprofit organization wit ...

, Fellow of the

World Technology Network In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

, Fellow of the American Physical Society, and Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsi ...

. In 2019, Stolovitzky was appointed as an

, the highest honor IBM bestows to its employees. In 2021, Stolovitzky was elected as a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

International Society for Computational Biology The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) is a scholarly society for researchers in computational biology and bioinformatics. The society was founded in 1997 to provide a stable financial home for the Intelligent Systems for Mole ...

Family

Stolovitzky resides in the Northeastern United States with his family.

History

Stolovitzky received his M.Sc. in physics (with honors) from the

, Argentina, in 1987 and his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, ...

from

in 1994. He later explained that during a visit he paid to a friend studying in Yale, he met with

K.R. Sreenivasan Katepalli Raju Sreenivasan is an aerospace scientist, fluid dynamics, and applied physicist whose research includes physics and applied mathematics. He studies turbulence, nonlinear and statistical physics, astrophysical fluid mechanics, an ...

, who "called the provost and asked if he could add me as a PhD student, even though I hadn't formally applied to Yale and all the deadlines had already passed." He did his postdoctorate at the Center for Studies in Physics and Biology at

, following which he joined IBM Research in 1998.

Titles and awards

Among others, Gustavo has received the following awards and titles: *

* Distinguished Research Staff Member in the IBM Computational Biology Center *

IBM Master Inventor IBM Master Inventor is an honorific title bestowed by the IBM Corporation to a qualifying employee. The qualification and appointment to Master Inventor is governed by the value to IBM of an inventor's contribution to the patent portfolio, and thr ...

* Fellow of the NY Academy of Sciences *

Fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its moti ...

(2007) *

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS) is an honor accorded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to distinguished persons who are members of the Association. Fellows are elected ...

* HEENAC Pioneer Award to Great Minds in STEM, awarded by the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (2013) * World Technology Awards in the Category "Biotechnology", awarded by the World Technology Network (2013) * Henry Prentiss Becton Prize, awarded by the Faculty of Engineering at Yale University for Excellence in Engineering and Applied Science (1995) * Fellow of the World Technology Network

References