Jennifer Listgarten is a pioneering scholar who bridges the gap between artificial intelligence and biological sciences through innovative computational approaches. She currently serves as a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, the Center for Computational Biology, and the Bioengineering program at the University of California, Berkeley, where she holds the prestigious Jeffrey Huber and Angel Vossough Chancellor's Chair in Computational Biomedicine. Prior to her current academic appointment, she spent a decade of impactful research at Microsoft Research across multiple locations including Cambridge, MA, Los Angeles, and Redmond, WA. Her academic foundation includes dual undergraduate degrees in Physics and Computer Science from Queen's University in Canada, followed by a PhD in the machine learning group of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, located in her hometown.
Professor Listgarten has developed transformative computational models that significantly enhance the precision and efficiency of CRISPR gene editing technology, establishing her as a leading authority in computational biology. Her groundbreaking work in applying machine learning to protein engineering has produced sophisticated algorithms for protein design and optimization that advance capabilities in properties such as expression, fluorescence, binding, and stability. She has pioneered methods for optimizing black box probabilistic functions with pathological regions that cannot be trusted, creating tools that accelerate molecular discovery across multiple life science domains. Her research program uniquely integrates graphical models, neural networks, and variational inference to solve complex problems in genetic association studies and molecular design, fundamentally transforming how computational approaches address biological challenges.
As a member of the steering committee for the Berkeley AI Research (BAIR) Lab and a Chan Zuckerberg Investigator, Professor Listgarten plays a pivotal role in shaping the future direction of artificial intelligence applications in biomedical research. Her leadership extends to collaborative projects addressing pressing challenges including drug repositioning and discovery, with notable contributions to combating diseases through AI-powered approaches as evidenced by multiple UC Berkeley-led projects receiving funding for COVID-19 research. She actively mentors the next generation of computational biologists and continues to expand the boundaries of her interdisciplinary research, recently focusing on the design of proteins using machine learning-based approaches. Professor Listgarten remains at the vanguard of computational biology, driving innovation that promises to transform therapeutic development and personalized medicine through the continued integration of machine learning with molecular science.
