Robert L. Grossman

Robert (Bob) Grossman is the Frederick H. Rawson Distinguished Service Professor in Medicine and Computer Science and the Jim and Karen Frank Director of the Center for Translational Data Science (CTDS) at the University of Chicago. He is also the Chief of the Section of Biomedical Data Science in the Department of Medicine and was the chief research informatics officer of the Biological Sciences Division from 2011-2024. 

Bob leads the development of the Gen3 data platform, which is an open source data platform for building and operating data commons and data meshes.  Bob and his team have built Gen3 data commons and data meshes that run on AWS to support research in cancer, cardiovascular diseases, infectious diseases, pain management, medical imaging, and other research areas.  Organizations have built Gen3 data commons around the world, including in Australia and New Zealand.  Gen3 helps bioinformaticians, researchers and developers have ready access to data and tools required to conduct complex research and make data-driven discoveries that increase scientific knowledge and improve the quality of life.   

Bob is also the principal investigator for the Genomic Data Commons (GDC), which makes over 13.2 PB of harmonized cancer genomics data available to the research community and is used by over 80,000 researchers each month.  Bob’s research interests include machine learning, AI and data science. 

In addition to his research at the University of Chicago, Bob is a Partner at Analytics Strategy Partners and the Chair of the Open Commons Consortium.   

Bob earned a PhD in applied mathematics at Princeton University and an AB in mathematics from Harvard University. 

Bob lives in Chicago with his wife and enjoys reading, running and going to the theater.