Biological Technologies Office
Russell Schwartz, Ph.D., joined DARPA in May 2026 as a program manager in the Biological Technologies Office. His research interests include developing algorithms, numerical methods, machine learning, and simulation methods for understanding complex biological systems.
Before joining DARPA, Schwartz was a professor of biological sciences and professor and head of the Ray & Stephanie Lane Computational Biology Department at Carnegie Mellon University, where his lab developed computational tools for diverse problems in genetics, genomics, and biophysics, with a particular focus in recent years on cancer research and somatic evolution. He also served as the co-director of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon Medical Scientist Training Program.
He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has published over 140 peer-reviewed articles. He has led numerous educational initiatives focused on improving quantitative and computational training in the life sciences and has received multiple honors, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) and induction as a Fellow of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB).
Education
- Ph.D., Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- M.Eng., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- B.S., Computer Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology