Dr. William Stafford Noble stands as a preeminent computational biologist whose innovative work bridges computer science and genomic research at the University of Washington. He currently holds professorships in both the Department of Genome Sciences and the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, where he directs the Computational Molecular Biology Program and co-directs the 4-Dimensional Genomic Nuclear Organization of Mammalian Embryogenesis Center. After earning his undergraduate degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University in 1991, he spent several years in the Peace Corps teaching mathematics and English in Africa before pursuing his PhD in computer science and cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, which he completed in 1998. His early career included a postdoctoral fellowship with David Haussler at UC Santa Cruz followed by an assistant professorship at Columbia University, where he established his interdisciplinary research program at the intersection of computational methods and biological discovery.
Dr. Noble's groundbreaking research has fundamentally transformed the analysis of complex biological data through the development of sophisticated computational methods and widely adopted software tools. He pioneered the Percolator algorithm, which revolutionized peptide identification in proteomics through semi-supervised learning techniques and has become the standard tool in the field with extensive adoption across research laboratories worldwide. His contributions to the MEME suite for DNA and protein sequence motif discovery have provided researchers with essential tools for understanding regulatory elements in genomes, with these resources continuing to be actively used decades after their initial development. With over 260 peer-reviewed publications accumulating more than 100,000 citations, his work on kernel methods for integrating heterogeneous biological data has enabled significant advances in protein classification, homology detection, and the analysis of three-dimensional genome structure.
Beyond his technical contributions, Dr. Noble has been instrumental in shaping the field of computational biology through leadership in major collaborative initiatives and dedicated mentorship of the next generation of scientists. As co-director of the UW 4-Dimensional Genomic Nuclear Organization of Mammalian Embryogenesis Center, he leads cutting-edge research into the dynamic spatial organization of the genome during development. His recognition with the 2019 ISCB Innovator Award underscores his sustained impact on the field, while his receipt of the University of Washington Postdoc Mentor of the Year award in 2010 highlights his exceptional commitment to training. Currently serving as a Senior Data Science Fellow at the UW eScience Institute, Dr. Noble continues to advance the integration of machine learning approaches with genomic and proteomic data analysis, driving forward our understanding of gene regulation and nuclear organization with implications for both basic biological understanding and potential clinical applications.
