Curtis Huttenhower

Curtis Huttenhower, Associate Professor of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has revolutionized our understanding of microbial communities and their impact on human health. After earning his Ph.D. in Genomics and Computational Biology from Princeton University, he has built an extraordinary career combining computational innovation with biological discovery. As director of the Huttenhower Lab and co-director of the Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, he leads groundbreaking research on the human microbiome's role in health and disease. His work includes leadership roles in the NIH Human Microbiome Project and development of widely-used computational tools for microbiome analysis. His research has produced over 200 peer-reviewed publications, earning him recognition as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate Analytics and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Through his innovative approaches combining machine learning, statistical methods, and biological experimentation, he continues to advance understanding of how microbial communities influence human health while mentoring the next generation of computational biologists.