Luay Nakhleh, professor of computer science and of biosciences, and dean of the engineering school at Rice, has been elected a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) for his achievements in computational biology.
Nakhleh earned his B.S. from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, in 1996, his M.S. from Texas A&M University in 1998, and Ph.D. from the University of Texas, Austin, in 2004, all in computer science.
He joined the Rice faculty in 2004 and was promoted to full professor in 2016. From 2017 to 2020 he was chair of computer science, and since 2021 has served as the William and Stephanie Sick Dean for the George R. Brown School of Engineering.
Nakhleh’s research interests focus on developing mathematical models and algorithms that help analyze omics data and understand biological processes from an evolutionary perspective. In particular, his work in recent years has been in the areas of phylogenomics and cancer genomics.
Nakhleh was formally inducted during the AIMBE Annual Event held on March 23 at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. A non-profit organization representing more than 50,000 biomedical engineers, AIMBE has elected some 2,500 of its members to its College of Fellows since it was founded in 1991.