Rate My Professor Mathieu Blanchette

Mathieu Blanchette is an Associate Professor and Director of the School of Computer Science at McGill University, where he founded and heads the Computational Genomics Lab. He received his B.Sc. in Mathematics and Computer Science (1997) and M.Sc. in Computer Science (1998) from Université de Montréal, followed by a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Washington in 2002 under advisor Martin Tompa. From 2002 to 2003, he was a postdoctoral researcher in David Haussler's lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Blanchette joined McGill's School of Computer Science as an Assistant Professor in 2003, advancing to Associate Professor in 2008.

Blanchette's research in bioinformatics and computational biology centers on computational genomics, including ancestral genome inference to detect ancient transcription factor binding sites and micro-RNA targets, transposable element annotation via the PIATEA system, 3D genomics for chromosome conformation analysis using Hi-C data, plant genome assembly and evolution, and epigenetic regulation through machine learning approaches. His lab develops algorithmic, statistical, and machine learning methods for genomics and evolution, collaborating with biologists and geneticists. With over 70 publications in high-impact journals, key works include 'BigDataScript: a scripting language for data pipelines' (Bioinformatics, 2015), 'An Atlas of over 90,000 Conserved Non-Coding Sequences Yields a Detailed Map of Crucifer Regulatory Regions' (Nature Genetics, 2013), 'The Capsella rubella genome and the genomic consequences of rapid mating system evolution' (Nature Genetics, 2013), and 'Classifying leukemia types with chromatin conformation data' (Genome Biology, 2014). His software tools, such as MCMC5C for chromatin 3D structure prediction and BigDataScript for big-data pipelines, support genomic analysis. Blanchette's impact is evidenced by awards including election to the College of Scholars of the Royal Society of Canada, Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2009), CACS/AIC Outstanding Young Computer Scientist Researcher Prize (2012), ISCB Chris Overton Prize (2006), and Leo Yaffe Teaching Prize (2008). He actively teaches and supervises graduate students.