Lawrence E. Hunter is a

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

. He was the founder and director of the Computational Bioscience Program at the

University of Colorado School of Medicine The University of Colorado School of Medicine is the medical school of the University of Colorado system. It is located at the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado, Aurora, Colorado, one of the four University of Colorado campuses, six mil ...

and Professor of Computer Science at the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...

. He is an internationally known scholar, focused on computational biology, knowledge-driven extraction of information from the primary biomedical literature, the

semantic integration Semantic integration is the process of interrelating information from diverse sources, for example calendars and to do lists, email archives, presence information (physical, psychological, and social), documents of all sorts, contacts (including ...

of knowledge resources in molecular biology, and the use of knowledge in the analysis of high-throughput data, as well as for his foundational work in computational biology, which led to the genesis of the major professional organization in the field and two international conferences.

Education

Hunter completed his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

in 1989 with a thesis on ''Knowledge Acquisition Planning: Gaining Expertise Through Experience'', on diagnosis of lung cancer from histological images using

Case-based reasoning Case-based reasoning (CBR), broadly construed, is the process of solving new problems based on the solutions of similar past problems. In everyday life, an auto mechanic who fixes an engine by recalling another car that exhibited similar sympto ...

, under the guidance of

Roger Schank Roger Carl Schank (March 12, 1946 – January 29, 2023) was an American artificial intelligence theorist, cognitive psychologist, learning scientist, educational reformer, and entrepreneur. Beginning in the late 1960s, he pioneered conceptual d ...

Career and research

Faced with a choice between careers in the main applications of artificial intelligence---game programming and defense work—Hunter chose an emerging new discipline,

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops methods and Bioinformatics software, software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics uses biology, ...

. From 1989 to 2000, Hunter worked as a computer scientist and section chief for

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

sections devoted to statistical and bioinformatic research. He was an adjunct faculty member at

George Mason University George Mason University (GMU) is a Public university, public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Located in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C., the university is named in honor of George Mason, a Founding Father ...

from 1991 through 2000 and an associate professor in the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine from 2000 to 2008. He was promoted to professor in 2008. He moved to the University of Chicago in 2024.

ISCB

In 1997, Hunter founded what has become the largest professional organization in

computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of techniques in computer science, data analysis, mathematical modeling and Computer simulation, computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer sci ...

and

, the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB).

Conferences

Hunter was also a founder of three successful international conferences in bioinformatics, the International Conference on

Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) is an annual academic conference on the subjects of bioinformatics and computational biology organised by the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB). The principal focus of the con ...

(ISMB) and the

Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing The Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB) is an annual multidisciplinary scientific meeting co-founded in 1996 by Dr. Teri Klein, Dr. Lawrence Hunter and Sharon Surles. The conference is to presentation and discuss research in the theory and a ...

(PSB) and the Rocky Mountain Bioinformatics Conference. He is also a co-organizer of the biological visualization conference Vizbi. Hunter cofounded and was a member of the Board of Directors of the Molecular Mining Corporation from 1997 to 2003.

Awards, honors and influence

Hunter is a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

American College of Medical Informatics The American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) is a college of elected fellows from the United States and abroad who have made significant and sustained contributions to the field of medical informatics. Initially incorporated in 1984, the o ...

and the winner of the

Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) is an international Learned society, scientific society devoted to promote research in, and responsible use of, artificial intelligence. AAAI also aims to increase public under ...

(AAAI) 2003 Engelmore Prize for Innovative Applications of

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

. Hunter is credited with being one of the founders of the field of

. Throughout his career Hunter has researched and directed research groups investigating the development and application of advanced computational techniques for biomedicine to high-throughput assays, particularly the application of statistical and knowledge-based techniques, in particular bio-ontologies, to the analysis of high-throughput data and of biomedical texts. He has proposed neurobiologically and evolutionarily informed computational models of cognition, and ethical issues related to computational bioscience. He has argued for expansion data science activities in biomedicine to include knowledge-based methods. He became an

ISCB Fellow ISCB Fellowship is an award granted to scientists that the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) judges to have made “outstanding contributions to the fields of computational biology and bioinformatics”. , there are 161 Fello ...

in 2010. Other awards and honors include Regent's Award for Scholarship and Technical Achievement 1994 Meritorious Service Award,

National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. I ...

, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 Excellence in Research Award,

Department of Pharmacology, 2007 Excellence in Teaching Award,

Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics, 2004.

Publications

Selected publications include: * * *
Planning to learn
The Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Boston, MA., July 1990, pp. 26–34, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ. in. * * * * *Hunter, Lawrence (2009). ''The processes of life: an introduction to molecular biology''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, Lawrence 1961 births Living people Artificial intelligence researchers American bioinformaticians Fellows of the International Society for Computational Biology University of Colorado Denver faculty Yale University alumni