Bonnie Anne Berger is an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

and

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

, who works as the Simons professor of mathematics and professor of

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. Her research interests are in

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...

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

and computational

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

Education

Berger did her undergraduate studies at

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

, and earned her doctorate from MIT in 1990 under the supervision of

Silvio Micali Silvio Micali (born October 13, 1954) is an Italian computer scientist, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the founder of Algorand. Micali's research centers on cryptography and information security. In 2012, he received ...

. As a student, she won the

Machtey Award The Machtey Award is awarded at the annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS) to the author(s) of the best student paper(s). A paper qualifies as a student paper if all authors are full-time students at the date of the submiss ...

in 1989 for a paper on

parallel algorithm In computer science, a parallel algorithm, as opposed to a traditional serial algorithm, is an algorithm which can do multiple operations in a given time. It has been a tradition of computer science to describe serial algorithms in abstract machin ...

s that she published with fellow student John Rompel at the

Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science The IEEE Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS) is an academic conference in the field of theoretical computer science. FOCS is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society. As writes, FOCS and its annual Association for Computing ...

Career and research

After completing her PhD, Berger remained at MIT for

postdoctoral research A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to p ...

where she became a faculty member in 1992. Her research in

has been published in leading

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

ed scientific journals including ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

'', the ''Journal of Algorithms''. Her former doctoral students include

Serafim Batzoglou Serafim Batzoglou is Chief Data Officer at Seer Inc. Prior to that he was Chief Data Officer at insitro, VP of computational genomics aIllumina and professor of computer science at Stanford University between 2001 and 2016. His lab focused on com ...

Lior Pachter Lior Samuel Pachter is a computational biologist. He works at the California Institute of Technology, where he is the Bren Professor of Computational Biology. He has widely varied research interests including genomics, combinatorics, computational ...

Mona Singh Mona Singh (born 8 October 1981) is an Indian actress, dancer, model, comedian and television presenter. Having first gained prominence in 2000s for playing the eponymous heroine in the soap opera series ''Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin'' (2003–06), ...

Manolis Kellis , image = Prof Manolis Kellis at the 2017 American Society of Human Genetics meeting in Orlando October 19 2017.jpg , caption = Manolis Kellis at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) meeting in Orlando Florida on October 19, 2017 , bir ...

, and Phil Bradley. Berger has served as

vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...

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 ...

(ISCB) and chair of the steering committee for RECOMB.

Awards and honours

Berger was the 1997 winner of the Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award. In 1998 she was an Invited Speaker of the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize (to be rename ...

in Berlin (but she was unable to make a personal appearance). In 1999, Berger was included in a list of 100 top innovators published by ''

Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...

''. In 2003, Berger became 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

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

(ACM), and in 2012 she became an elected member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

and a fellow the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB). In 2016, Berger was inducted into the college of fellows of the

American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) is a non-profit organization founded in 1991, and headquartered in Washington. It represents 50,000 medical and biomedical engineers, and academic institutions, private industry, ...

(AIMBE). She was included in the 2019 class of fellows of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

"for contributions to computational biology, bioinformatics, algorithms and for mentoring". She also received the Honorary Doctorate at

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

(EPFL). She serves as a Member-at-Large of the Section on Mathematics at American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She was awarded the ISCB Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award in 2019. In 2020 she gave the AWM-

SIAM Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 mi ...

Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture, and additionally was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She was elected as a Fellow of the

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific socie ...

, in the 2022 Class of SIAM Fellows, "for pioneering work in computational molecular biology, including comparative and compressive genomics, network inference, genomic privacy, and protein structure prediction".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berger, Bonnie Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American computer scientists 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American women computer scientists American women mathematicians Brandeis University alumni MIT School of Engineering alumni MIT School of Engineering faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Fellows of the International Society for Computational Biology Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists