Jeff Leek
Also known as Jeffrey Leek, Jeffrey T. Leek
Jeff Leek is a biostatistician whose work connects gene-expression analysis, data science education, and cancer AI. At the University of Washington, he earned an MS and PhD in biostatistics and, with John Storey, introduced surrogate variable analysis for gene-expression studies. At Johns Hopkins, he co-directed the Data Science Lab, helped teach courses that enrolled more than 8 million people, and received the 2021 COPSS President’s Award. Fred Hutch named him vice president and chief data officer in 2022; he later helped spearhead the Cancer AI Alliance and presented its Asta DataVoyager research tool. TIME named him a 2025 TIME100 AI honoree, and as of October 2026 he is Fred Hutch’s vice president and chief data officer and holds the J Orin Edson Foundation Chair of Biostatistics.
Timeline
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2005–2007
Learning to model gene expression
At the University of Washington, he earned an MS in biostatistics in 2005 and a PhD in 2007. In 2007, with John Storey, he introduced surrogate variable analysis to account for hidden variation in gene-expression studies.
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2009–2022
Teaching data science at scale
He joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2009 and co-directed its Data Science Lab. Its online courses enrolled more than 8 million people, while community partnerships brought data science education to underserved communities.
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2021
A statistical society award
The Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies President’s Award cited his work on high-dimensional data, reproducibility, data science education, and community partnerships.
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2022
A data science enterprise
In January 2022, Fred Hutch named him vice president and chief data officer to build the center’s computational resources, data services, and biomedical research data enterprise.
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January 2025
Planning models for cancer care
He described CAIA’s plan to use patient data for machine-learning models that predict outcomes, assign therapies, and support cancer discovery, then deploy them to improve patient care.
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August 2025
Named to TIME100 AI
Fred Hutch described him as a TIME100 AI honoree and as someone who helped spearhead the Cancer AI Alliance.
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October 2025
A plain-language research tool
As CAIA’s scientific director, he presented Asta DataVoyager, a tool developed with Ai2 that lets researchers ask questions in plain language and receive cited, explainable answers across the federated platform.
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As of October 2026
Leading data science at Fred Hutch
He is Fred Hutch’s vice president and chief data officer and holds the J Orin Edson Foundation Chair of Biostatistics. In March 2026, Fred Hutch researchers tested the Cancer AI Alliance platform through eight pilot projects for AI and machine learning applications in cancer research and clinical practice.
Sources and credits
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- Jeffrey Leek | UW School of Public Health
- Capturing Heterogeneity in Gene Expression Studies by Surrogate Variable Analysis
- Dr. Jeffrey Leek named VP and Chief Data Officer
- Sharing AI insights without sharing patient data
- Fred Hutch Media Coverage
- One year in: The Cancer AI Alliance unveils collaborative AI platform at IA40
- Fred Hutch researchers test privacy-first AI platform for cancer research
- About our team