Lawrence E. Hunter is a
Professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
and Director of the Center for Computational Pharmacology and 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, one of the four University of Colorado campuses, six miles east of downtown ...
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. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado syst ...
. 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 at
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
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
In artificial intelligence and philosophy, 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 recalli ...
, under the guidance of
Roger Schank
Roger Carl Schank (born 1946) is an American artificial intelligence theorist, cognitive psychologist, learning scientist, educational reformer, and entrepreneur.
Beginning in the late 1960s, he pioneered conceptual dependency theory (within the ...
.
Career and research
Faced with a choice between careers in the main applications of artificial intelligence---game programming and defense work—Hunter chose to create a new discipline,
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 ...
. From 1989 to 2000, Hunter worked as a computer scientist and section chief for
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
sections devoted to statistical and bioinformatic research. He was an adjunct faculty member at
George Mason University
George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was origin ...
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.
ISCB
In 1997, Hunter founded what has become the largest professional organization in
computational biology
Computational biology refers to the use of data analysis, mathematical modeling and computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer science, biology, and big data, the field also has fo ...
and
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 ...
, 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 ap ...
(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 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
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 scientific society devoted to promote research in, and responsible use of, artificial intelligence. AAAI also aims to increase public understanding of artif ...
(AAAI) 2003 Engelmore Prize for Innovative Applications of
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
.
Hunter is credited with being one of the founders of the field of
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 ...
. 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 76 Fellow ...
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. Its ...
, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 Excellence in Research Award,
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, one of the four University of Colorado campuses, six miles east of downtown ...
Department of Pharmacology, 2007 Excellence in Teaching Award,
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, one of the four University of Colorado campuses, six miles east of downtown ...
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