PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Dennis E. Shasha

Also known as Dennis Shasha

Dennis Shasha is a computer scientist whose research spans machine learning, network inference, protein function, and time-series analysis. After earning an electrical engineering degree at Yale, he worked at IBM, completed an applied mathematics doctorate at Harvard, and joined NYU Courant's faculty in 1984. His work includes a 1999 book on biomolecular patterns, a 2004 book on time-series algorithms, SafePredict, and the NoGO database for protein-function prediction. In 2014, he was named an ACM Fellow; he shared the 2020 SIGMOD Contributions Award and became a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors in 2023. As of October 2026, he is a Silver Professor at NYU Courant and Associate Director of NYU WIRELESS.

Born
1955
Badges

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. 1977–1984

    Yale, IBM and Harvard

    At Yale, he earns a B.Sc. in electrical engineering in 1977. From 1977 to 1980, he works at IBM Data Systems Division, designing hardware and microcode for the IBM 3090, while earning an M.Sc. at Syracuse in 1980. He completes a Ph.D. in applied mathematics at Harvard in 1984.

  2. 1984–1995

    Faculty at NYU Courant

    At NYU's Courant Institute, he joins the computer science faculty as an assistant professor in 1984, becomes an associate professor in 1990, and becomes a professor in 1995.

  3. 1999–2004

    Bioinformatics and time-series books

    He co-edits Pattern Discovery in Biomolecular Data with Jason Wang and Bruce Shapiro in 1999. In 2004, he publishes High Performance Discovery in Time Series with Yunyue Zhu, a book presenting fast methods for analyzing correlated time series.

  4. 2014

    An ACM Fellowship

    In 2014, he becomes an ACM Fellow for technical and literary contributions to the field of data management.

  5. 2014–2016

    Protein prediction and SafePredict

    In 2014, he coauthors the NoGO study, which provides negative examples for machine-learning systems that predict protein function. His SafePredict framework can refuse predictions when an underlying model's error rate exceeds a user-set bound. In 2016, he coauthors “Conjugate conformal prediction for online binary classification” with M. A. Kocak and E. Erkip.

  6. 2020

    A SIGMOD Contributions Award

    In 2020, he shares the SIGMOD Contributions Award with Philippe Bonnet, Juliana Freire, Stratos Idreos, Stefan Manegold and Ioana Manolescu for work to encourage scientific reproducibility in database publications.

  7. 2023

    NAI Senior Member

    In 2023, the National Academy of Inventors names him a Senior Member. He co-creates software systems to combat epidemics, prevent software piracy, and create energy-efficient blockchains.

  8. As of October 2026

    Silver Professor at Courant

    As of October 2026, he is a Silver Professor of Computer Science at NYU's Courant Institute and Associate Director of NYU WIRELESS. His research interests include network inference and protein design.

Career

  1. Since 1984Courant Institute of Mathematical SciencesAssistant professor, Associate professor
  2. NowNew York UniversityAssociate Director
  3. 1977–1980IBM

Education

  1. 1984Harvard UniversityPh.D. in applied mathematics
  2. 1980Syracuse UniversityM.Sc.
  3. 1977Yale UniversityB.Sc. in electrical engineering

From the biography.

  1. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes New York University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes New York University. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  3. Companies supply the most prior-work hires at 7 of the 9 frontier AI labsIncludes New York University. Our estimates of the organizations where 550 people worked directly before joining 9 frontier AI labs across 620 career transitions, comparing the main feeder organizations per lab.
  4. 20% of people at companies who shape AI also hold a university role, led by Google and Stanford UniversityIncludes New York University. We estimate that 539 of the 6,766 people with a known current organization (8%) hold both a university role and a company role, including 20% of people at companies and 13% of people at universities.

Colleagues

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

Sources and credits

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  1. Dennis E. Shasha math.nyu.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Dennis Shasha cs.nyu.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Dennis Shasha Research Overview cs.nyu.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Prof. Dennis Shasha Named 2014 ACM Fellow wireless.engineering.nyu.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Negative Example Selection for Protein Function Prediction: The NoGO Database journals.plos.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Dennis Shasha | NYU WIRELESS wireless.engineering.nyu.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. 2020 SIGMOD Contributions Award sigmod.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. NYU’s Shasha, co-creator of software to combat epidemics, named senior member of National Academy of Inventors eurekalert.org. Checked 21 October 2026.