Dr. Jean Gao

Education

• PhD, Purdue University
• MS, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
• BS, Fudan University

Bio

Dr. Gao joined the Computer Science Department at Baylor University in July 2025 as the Department Chair and Professor.  Prior to Baylor, Dr. Gao was with the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of NIH from 2024 as a permanent Program Director in the Office of Genomic Data Science. She managed a portfolio of grants focused on developing data science and computational methods to address complex challenges in genomics science and genomic medicine. She co-led the CGDS (Computational Genomics and Data Science) R01 and R21 program, and the Common Fund Bridge2AI (Bridge to Artificial Intelligence) program. In addition, she represented NHGRI for the ODSS (Office of Data Science Strategy) Sustainable Software Tools program. She also managed several flagship cyberinfrastructure projects including Galaxy, Genome Browser, Bioconductor, and Dockstore. Her portfolio also includes the DS-I-Africa (Data Science in Africa) and MorPhiC (Molecular Phenotypes of Null Alleles in Cells) program.

Prior to joining NHGRI, Dr. Gao served for four years as a Program Director in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Biological Infrastructure (DBI) from 2019 to 2023. As the Program Director for bioinformatics and computational biology, she managed related grant portfolios under DBI (Innovation: Bioinformatics program and Capacity: Cyberinfrastructure program). She co-initiated several NSF-wide programs, including Mid-Career Advancement (MCA), the Dark Dimensions for the RNA Regulome (D2R2) Ideas Lab, and Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE).

Previously, Dr. Gao was a tenured Full Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her research focuses on developing efficient algorithms to solve large scale data analytics problems in basic medicine and in clinical settings while making theoretical and fundamental contributions to machine learning, data mining, artificial intelligence, statistical pattern recognition, and computer vision. Her research discoveries have been reported in over 190 journals and conference proceedings.

Dr. Gao has served as an Associate Editor for IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (TCBB) since 2008 and previously chaired its Steering Committee. She is the recipient of prestigious NSF Early Career Award, NSF Director’s Award for Superior Accomplishment, and is a Lifetime Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). 

She holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University, an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Shanghai Medical University.