Chris Mungall

Divisions

Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology

• Biosystems Data Science

Research Interests

Dr. Chris Mungall is a Staff Scientist in the Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division at LBNL, where he heads the Biosystems Data Science department. Chris’s research interests center around the capture, computational integration, and dissemination of biological research data, and the development of methods for using this data to elucidate biological mechanisms underpinning the health of humans and of the planet. He and his team have led the creation of key biological ontologies for the integration of resources covering gene function, anatomy, phenotypes and the environment. In the Gene Ontology project and others, Chris and his collaborators develop systems that help curators translate biological knowledge into a computable form, and apply that biological knowledge to answer complex biological questions.

Chris’s areas of focus include ontologies, systems biology, data science, biocuration, knowledge representation, data harmonization, reusable and interoperable software, machine learning and reasoning. A growing area of interest is translating curated basic research data into clinically actionable frameworks.

Chris is a PI on the Gene Ontology (GO), the Monarch Initiative, the Alliance of Genome Resources, Phenomics First, and the NCATS Biomedical Data Translator, as well as metadata lead for the National Microbiome Data Collaborative (NMDC). In 2017, Chris was the first person to be awarded the Exceptional Contributions to Biocuration Award by the International Society for Biocuration. In 2020, he received a Berkeley Lab Early Scientific Career Director’s Award.

Programs & Initiatives

• The Monarch Initiative
  
• Gene Ontology Consortium
  
• The Environmental Ontology (EnvO)