David Heckerman
David Heckerman developed probabilistic AI and machine learning research, including Bayesian networks and applications in biology. Heckerman earned a Stanford doctorate in 1990 and a medical degree in 1992. His doctoral work provided a platform for constructing probabilistic expert systems, and he received an ACM dissertation award in 1990. He founded a bioinformatics group in 2004 and a genomics group in 2015. His research applies machine learning to HIV vaccine design and develops methods for genome association studies.
Timeline
-
1990–1992
Training and probabilistic expert systems
Heckerman earned a Stanford doctorate in 1990 and a medical degree in 1992. His doctoral work provided a platform for constructing probabilistic expert systems, and he received an ACM dissertation award in 1990.
-
1992–1994
Building AI and learning research groups
He worked at Microsoft Research from 1992 to 2017. He founded an AI group in 1992 and a machine learning group in 1994. He led a team that built a machine learning platform hosted in SQL Server.
-
As of October 2026
Learning Bayesian networks
He developed an approach to learning Bayesian networks from both expert knowledge and data. The approach supports causal discovery.
-
2004–2015
Machine learning and biology
He founded a bioinformatics group in 2004 and a genomics group in 2015. His research applies machine learning to HIV vaccine design and develops methods for genome association studies.
Sources and credits
Photo: microsoft.com; David Heckerman at Microsoft Research; creator not stated. License: Not stated by source. Source: microsoft.com. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.