PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Mathieu Blanchette

Mathieu Blanchette is a computational biologist at McGill University whose group designs algorithmic, machine learning and statistical methods for genomics and evolution. He studied at the Université de Montréal and completed a PhD at the University of Washington in 2002, then joined McGill's School of Computer Science in 2003 and founded the Computational Genomics Lab. Recognition came with the ISCB Overton Prize in 2006, a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2007 and election to the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in 2015. In June 2026, Bioinformatics published GraphyloVar, a deep learning model he built with Dongjoon Lim to predict the impact of non-coding variants from the phylogenetic tree of many species. He is an associate professor in McGill's School of Computer Science and an associate academic member of Mila, where his research topics include deep learning and graph neural networks.

Timeline

  1. 1994–2002

    Degrees in Montreal and Seattle

    He studies mathematics and computer science at the Université de Montréal from 1994 to 1997, then earns an M.Sc. there with a thesis on breakpoint phylogeny under David Sankoff. He completes a PhD in computer science at the University of Washington in 2002 under Martin Tompa.

  2. 2003

    Founding the Computational Genomics Lab

    After a postdoc at the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, working with David Haussler, he takes up a position at McGill in 2003. He joins the School of Computer Science there and founds the Computational Genomics Lab.

  3. 2006

    The Overton Prize

    The International Society for Computational Biology awards him the 2006 Overton Prize, given to scientists in the early to middle stage of their careers. He delivers the Overton keynote lecture, "What mammalian genomes tell us about our ancestors, and vice versa", at the society's annual meeting in Fortaleza, Brazil.

  4. 2007

    A Sloan Research Fellowship

    The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation names him a 2007 Sloan Research Fellow, with a two-year fellowship and a US$45,000 award. He is then an assistant professor at the Centre for Bioinformatics of McGill's School of Computer Science, and McGill cites his work on algorithms for reconstructing ancestral mammalian genomes.

  5. 2008–2012

    Teaching and early-career prizes

    McGill honours him with its Leo Yaffe Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2008. In 2012, the Canadian Association for Computer Science gives him its Outstanding Young Computer Scientist Researcher Prize.

  6. 2015

    Royal Society of Canada's College

    The Royal Society of Canada elects him in 2015 to its College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, one of six McGill scholars among 48 new members. McGill's announcement describes his work as spanning genomics, protein-protein interactions, gene regulation and 3D structure analysis.

  7. June 2026

    GraphyloVar for non-coding variants

    Bioinformatics publishes GraphyloVar in June 2026, a deep learning model that Dongjoon Lim and he build to predict the impact of non-coding genetic variants. It extends their earlier Graphylo model, uses graph convolutional networks over the phylogenetic tree of many species, and reads DNA sequence with Transformer encoders.

  8. As of October 2026

    Associate professor and Mila member

    He is an associate professor in McGill's School of Computer Science and an associate academic member of Mila, where his research topics include deep learning and graph neural networks. His group designs algorithmic, machine learning and statistical approaches to questions in genomics and evolution, and McGill lists artificial intelligence among his research areas.

Career

  1. Since 2003McGill UniversityFounder, Associate Professor
  2. NowMilaAssociate academic member
  3. From 2007School of Computer Science, McGill UniversityAssistant Professor
  4. University of California, Santa CruzPostdoc

Education

  1. 2002University of WashingtonPhD
  2. 1997Université de MontréalM.Sc.

From the biography.

  1. 20% of people at companies who shape AI also hold a university role, led by Google and Stanford UniversityIncludes McGill 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.
  2. Universities (31%) and startups and other companies (25%) employ the largest shares of 2020–2026 entrantsIncludes Mila. Among 819 people whose first recorded role started in 2020–2026 and who have a known current organization, 60% work in commercial sectors (25% at startups and other companies, 23% at frontier labs and 13% at big tech, with 9 in two), and 31% work at universities, compared with 66% for earlier entrants.
  3. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes McGill 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.
  4. Companies supply the most prior-work hires at 7 of the 9 frontier AI labsIncludes Mila. 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.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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

  1. 2006 Overton Prize Winner - Mathieu Blanchette transition.iscb.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Mathieu Blanchette | Mila mila.quebec. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. McGill gets four Sloans reporter-archive.mcgill.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Mathieu Blanchette's Computational Genomics Lab cs.mcgill.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Royal Society of Canada elects six McGill scholars to The College - McGill Reporter reporter.mcgill.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. McGill School Of Computer Science cs.mcgill.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.