William Stafford Noble
{{Short description|Computational biologist}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = William Stafford Noble
| image = | caption = | birth_date = | birth_place = | nationality = American | fields = Bioinformatics, Computational biology, Machine learning, Genomics, Proteomics
| workplaces = University of Washington
Columbia University
| alma_mater = Stanford University (B.S.)
University of California, San Diego (Ph.D. 1998)
University of California, Santa Cruz (Postdoc)
| doctoral_advisor = | known_for = Applying machine learning to biological data analysis
Analysis of proteomics data (Percolator)
Sequence analysis (MEME suite)
Kernel methods in biology
| awards = {{Unbulleted list
| NSF CAREER Award {{cite web |url=https://www.iscb.org/iscb-news-items/3902-2019-feb22-iscb-congratulates-2019-iscb-award-winners |title=ISCB Congratulates the 2019 ISCB Award Winners! |publisher=ISCB |date=February 22, 2019 |accessdate={{TODAY}}}}{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0OzIydW9QM |title=Dr. William Noble - July 11, 2018 |publisher=YouTube |date=July 11, 2018 |accessdate={{TODAY}}}}
| ISCB Innovator Award (2019)
| Highly Cited Researcher (Clarivate Analytics)
}}
| website = {{URL|https://noble.gs.washington.edu/~wnoble/}} {{cite web |url=https://noble.gs.washington.edu/~wnoble/ |title=William Stafford Noble - Noble Research Lab - University of Washington |publisher=University of Washington |accessdate={{TODAY}}}}
}}
William Stafford Noble (formerly William Noble Grundy) is an American computational biologist. He is a professor in the Department of Genome Sciences and the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. Noble is known for developing machine learning and statistical methods for analyzing biological data, particularly in genomics and proteomics. His research includes work on sequence analysis, kernel methods, genome annotation, the 3D structure of the genome, and the analysis of shotgun proteomics data. He is a recipient of the ISCB Innovator Award and is an ISCB Fellow.
Education and early career
Noble received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University. He spent several years between his undergraduate and graduate studies working for companies and serving for two years in the Peace Corps, teaching mathematics and English in Africa.
He earned his Ph.D. in computer science and cognitive science from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in 1998.{{cite web |url=https://www.iscb.org/ismbeccb2019-program/keynotes/noble |title=William Stafford Noble |publisher=ISCB |date=May 27, 2019 |accessdate={{TODAY}}}} He then completed a one-year postdoctoral fellowship with David Haussler at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Following his postdoc, Noble became an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University.
Career and research
In 2002, Noble joined the faculty of the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington (UW). He holds a joint appointment in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. At UW, he serves as the director of the Computational Molecular Biology Program and is a co-director of the UW 4-Dimensional Genomic Nuclear Organization of Mammalian Embryogenesis (4D GENOME) Center. He is also a Senior Data Science Fellow at the UW eScience Institute.{{Cite web |title=Data Science Affiliates |url=https://escience.washington.edu/people/affiliates-list/ |access-date=2025-04-08 |website=escience.washington.edu}}
Noble's research focuses on applying and developing computational methods, particularly from machine learning and statistics, to interpret complex biological datasets. Key areas include:
- Proteomics: Developing methods for analyzing mass spectrometry data from shotgun proteomics experiments, including the widely used Percolator algorithm{{Cite journal |last1=Käll |first1=Lukas |last2=Canterbury |first2=Jesse D. |last3=Weston |first3=Jason |last4=Noble |first4=William Stafford |last5=MacCoss |first5=Michael J. |date=November 2007 |title=Semi-supervised learning for peptide identification from shotgun proteomics datasets |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/nmeth1113 |journal=Nature Methods |language=en |volume=4 |issue=11 |pages=923–925 |doi=10.1038/nmeth1113 |pmid=17952086 |issn=1548-7105}} for improving peptide identifications using semi-supervised learning.{{cite web |url=https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/William-Stafford-Noble/144458655 |title=William Stafford Noble - Semantic Scholar profile |publisher=Semantic Scholar |accessdate={{TODAY}}}}
- Genomics and Sequence analysis: Creating computational tools for analyzing DNA and protein sequences. He is a contributor to the MEME suite for motif discovery.{{cite web |url=https://web.mit.edu/meme_v4.11.4/share/doc/authors.html |title=Authors - MEME Suite |publisher=MIT |accessdate={{TODAY}}}}
- Kernel methods: Applying kernel methods for learning from heterogeneous biological data and for tasks like protein classification and homology detection.
- Chromatin Structure: Investigating the three-dimensional structure of the genome.
- Gene regulation: Developing methods for genome annotation and understanding regulatory elements.{{cite web |url=https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/William-S-Noble-10863633 |title=William S. Noble's research works - University of Washington and other places |accessdate={{TODAY}}}}
He has authored over 260 peer-reviewed publications with >100,000 citations{{Cite web |title=William Stafford Noble |url=https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=plt2_DsAAAAJ&hl=en |access-date=2025-04-08 |website=scholar.google.com}} and advised numerous postdoctoral fellows and graduate students.
Awards and recognition
- NSF CAREER Award{{Cite web |title=William Stafford Noble – Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education |url=https://bime.uw.edu/faculty/william-stafford-noble/ |access-date=2025-04-08 |language=en-US}}
- Sloan Research Fellowship
- ISCB Innovator Award (2019)
- ISCB Fellow
- Highly Cited Researcher (Clarivate Analytics)
- Former member, Board of Directors, International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB)
Personal life
Noble formerly used the name William Noble Grundy. His Erdős number is 3.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{URL|https://noble.gs.washington.edu/}} - Noble Research Lab website
- {{Google Scholar id|ZAFKQpkAAAAJ|William Stafford Noble}}
- {{ORCID|0000-0001-7283-4715}}
Category:American bioinformaticians
Category:American computer scientists
Category:University of Washington faculty
Category:Columbia University faculty
Category:University of California, San Diego alumni
Category:University of California, Santa Cruz people