PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Russell Schwartz

Also known as Russell S. Schwartz

Russell Schwartz is a computational biologist who applies machine learning to cancer evolution and gene regulation. He earned a computer science PhD at MIT in 2000, joined Carnegie Mellon in 2002, and wrote Biological Modeling and Simulation in 2008. His 2021 work used tumor evolution to predict cancer progression, and he coauthored the 2022 paper introducing CITRUS, a neural network for studying gene regulation across cancers. At Carnegie Mellon, he became head of the Computational Biology Department in July 2020; he became an ISCB vice president and fellow in 2023. He is a program manager in DARPA's Biological Technologies Office, which he joined in May 2026.

Works
364
Citations
20,610
h-index
35
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2000

    An MIT doctorate

    He earns a BS in computer science and engineering and an MEng in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. In 2000, he completes his computer science PhD in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with adviser Bonnie Berger. His thesis is The local rules dynamics model for self-assembly simulation.

  2. 2002

    Joining Carnegie Mellon's biology faculty

    He completes a postdoctoral appointment at MIT and works as an informatics research scientist at Celera Genomics. In 2002, he joins Carnegie Mellon's Department of Biological Sciences as an assistant professor.

  3. 2005

    A presidential early career award

    He receives the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2005 for work on computer models and simulations of biological self-assembly. The award also recognizes his plans to teach computational methods to biology students.

  4. 2008

    Biological modeling and simulation

    He publishes Biological Modeling and Simulation with MIT Press in 2008. The textbook grows out of a Carnegie Mellon class and covers optimization, simulation, sampling and methods for fitting models to biological systems.

  5. July 2020

    Head of computational biology

    In July 2020, he becomes head of Carnegie Mellon's Computational Biology Department, succeeding Robert F. Murphy. He also co-directs the joint University of Pittsburgh–CMU Medical Scientist Training Program in 2020. His lab develops methods to understand how cell populations evolve inside tumors, with the aim of predicting cancer progression and responses to treatment.

  6. 2021

    Predicting cancer progression

    In 2021, he coauthors Assessing the contribution of tumor mutational phenotypes to cancer progression risk. The team combines evolutionary trees with machine learning to predict overall survival and disease-free survival from breast and lung cancer data.

  7. 2022

    The CITRUS neural network

    In 2022, he coauthors the paper introducing CITRUS, a neural network for modeling how acquired tumor mutations affect gene regulation. The model combines genomic, gene-expression and chromatin data from 17 cancer types.

  8. 2023

    ISCB vice president and fellow

    He begins a term as vice president of the International Society for Computational Biology in January 2023. In June 2023, ISCB announces his election as an ISCB Fellow for contributions spanning human genome sequencing, computational genetics, biophysics and cancer genomics.

  9. Since May 2026

    Program manager at DARPA

    In May 2026, he joins DARPA's Biological Technologies Office as a program manager. His research interests include machine learning, algorithms and simulation methods for understanding complex biological systems.

Career

  1. Since 2026DARPAProgram Manager, Biological Technologies Office
  2. NowCarnegie Mellon UniversityProfessor
  3. From 2023International Society for Computational BiologyVice President
  4. 1998–2001Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPostdoctoral Appointment
  5. Celera GenomicsInformatics Research Scientist

Education

  1. 2000Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPhD in computer science
  2. Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyBS in computer science and engineering
  3. Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMEng in electrical engineering and computer science

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

Checked career sources: csd.cmu.edu, cmu.edu.

Colleagues

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

Sources and credits

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  1. The local rules dynamics model for self-assembly simulation dspace.mit.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  2. Russell Schwartz | DARPA darpa.mil. Checked 27 October 2026.
  3. Carnegie Mellon Computational Biologist Receives Prestigious PECASE Award cmu.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  4. Biological Modeling and Simulation: A Survey of Practical Models, Algorithms ... - Russell Schwartz - Google Books books.google.com. Checked 27 October 2026.
  5. Schwartz Named Head of Computational Biology Department - News - Carnegie Mellon University cmu.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  6. Assessing the contribution of tumor mutational phenotypes to cancer progression risk | PLOS Computational Biology journals.plos.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  7. Interpretable deep learning for chromatin-informed inference of transcriptional programs driven by somatic alterations across cancers - PMC pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Checked 27 October 2026.
  8. Russell Schwartz Elected Vice President of ISCB - Ray and Stephanie Lane Computational Biology Department - Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science - Carnegie Mellon University cmu.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  9. June 16, 2023: ISCB Congratulates and Introduces the 2023 Class of Fellows! iscb.org. Checked 27 October 2026.