PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

David Gondek

David Gondek is an AI researcher whose work covers question answering, Jeopardy! strategy, and grounded banking language models. He earned a B.A. in mathematics and computer science at Dartmouth and a Ph.D. in computer science at Brown in 2005. He joined IBM's TREC team in 2006 and coauthored a 2010 overview of Watson's DeepQA architecture. At IBM, he explained Watson's answer scoring and led its Knowledge Capture and Learning and Medical Adaptation groups; the Watson team received AAAI's Feigenbaum Prize in 2013. In July 2026, he coauthors FinRAG-12B, a Kasisto project for grounded banking question answering.

Works
41
Citations
6,518
h-index
28
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 19 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2005

    A computer science doctorate

    He earns a B.A. in mathematics and computer science from Dartmouth College and completes a Ph.D. in computer science at Brown University in 2005.

  2. 2006

    IBM in TREC 2006

    In 2006, the IBM team, including him, enters TREC's Enterprise Track and submits runs for discussion and expert search.

  3. 2010

    Building Watson with DeepQA

    In 2010, he coauthors an overview of the DeepQA architecture behind IBM Watson's Jeopardy! question-answering system.

  4. 2011

    Explaining Watson's answers

    In 2011, he explains how Watson uses machine learning and parallel algorithms to answer clues, then ranks candidate answers by evidence and confidence.

  5. 2012

    Leading Watson's medical groups

    In 2012, he leads Watson's Knowledge Capture and Learning and Medical Adaptation groups.

  6. 2013

    The Feigenbaum Prize

    In 2013, AAAI awards the Feigenbaum Prize to IBM Watson's team for combining symbolic knowledge representation, natural-language understanding, and statistical machine learning in real-time factual question answering; Gondek is listed among the team members.

  7. July 2026

    FinRAG-12B for banking

    In July 2026, he coauthors FinRAG-12B, a grounded language model for banking question answering, while working at Kasisto.

Career

  1. 2015–2016Ithaca College
  2. 2009–2015Harvard University
  3. 2006–2012IBMLeader, Knowledge Capture and Learning and Medical Adaptation groups

Education

  1. 2005Brown UniversityPhD
  2. Dartmouth CollegeB.A.

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Building Watson: An Overview of the DeepQA Project2010 · AI Magazine · 1,521 citationsWith Adam Lally, Aditya Kalyanpur, Chris Welty and David Ferrucci
  2. Cutting Edge: Contact-Mediated Suppression by CD4+CD25+ Regulatory Cells Involves a Granzyme B-Dependent, Perforin-Independent Mechanism2005 · The Journal of Immunology · 942 citations
  3. Mast cells are essential intermediaries in regulatory T-cell tolerance2006 · Nature · 751 citations
  4. VISTA, a novel mouse Ig superfamily ligand that negatively regulates T cell responses2011 · The Journal of Experimental Medicine · 712 citations
  5. A mucosal vaccine against Chlamydia trachomatis generates two waves of protective memory T cells2015 · Science · 378 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 19 October 2026.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Harvard University. Our estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.
  2. Google alumni founded or led 87 other organizations, the most among the labs we compareIncludes IBM. We trace 212 organizations founded or led by AI lab alumni, and 223 career moves between the labs.
  3. Stanford University trained or employed 20 of the 89 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Harvard University. Stanford University trained or employed 20 of the 89 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and employment links for major-prize and best-paper winners.
  4. 44% of AI career moves go from one university to anotherIncludes Harvard University. We estimate how 14,272 AI career moves link universities, companies, labs and government research centers, with net flows and the most common paths.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of David Gondek yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Brown CS: PhD Theses cs.brown.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. IBM Watson from Jeopardy! to Healthcare: could a quiz-show winning computer advise your doctor? cst.cam.ac.uk. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. Proceedings - Enterprise 2006 - TREC Browser pages.nist.gov. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. Building Watson: An Overview of the DeepQA Project | AI Magazine ojs.aaai.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. For Watson, Jeopardy! is elementary thetech.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  6. AAAI Feigenbaum Prize aaai.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  7. FinRAG-12B · Backbase Research research.backbase.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  8. FinRAG-12B: A Production-Validated Recipe for Grounded Question Answering in Banking arxiv.org. Checked 19 October 2026.