ECS Welcomes New Department Chair, New Faculty

The School of Engineering and Computer Science welcomed Jean Gao, Ph.D., as the new chair of the Department of Computer Science, effective July 14, 2025. 

“We are delighted to welcome Dr. Jean Gao as professor and chair of the computer science department at Baylor,” said Daniel Pack, Ph.D., dean of the School of Engineering and Computer Science. “Dr. Gao brings with her an outstanding academic record, along with nationally recognized leadership at both the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Her leadership in shaping the research enterprise of the department in the evolving landscape of federally funded research will be an invaluable asset to our faculty and students. Already we are benefiting from the vision, energy and insight she brings as we advance the mission of ECS and Baylor.”

At the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Gao served as a program director in the Office of Genomic Data Science at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). She managed a portfolio of grants focused on developing data science and computational methods to address complex challenges in genomics science and genomic medicine. She was co-lead for the Computational Genomics and Data Science R01 and R21 program, and the Common Fund Bridge2AI (Bridge to Artificial Intelligence) program. In addition, she represented NHGRI for the Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS) Sustainable Software Tools program. She also managed several flagship cyberinfrastructure projects, including Galaxy, Genome Browser, Bioconductor and Dockstore. Her portfolio also includes the MorPhiC (Molecular Phenotypes of Null Alleles in Cells) program.

Prior to joining NHGRI, Dr. Gao served for four years as a program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Biological Infrastructure (DBI). As the program director for bioinformatics and computational biology, she managed related grant portfolios under DBI (Innovation: Bioinformatics program and Capacity: Cyberinfrastructure program). She co-initiated several NSF-wide programs, including Mid-Career Advancement, the Dark Dimensions for the RNA Regulome Ideas Lab and Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems.

“I am really grateful to Baylor for giving me this opportunity, and I cherish Baylor’s Christian values and everything that the Baylor experience did for my son, who graduated from Baylor with a B.S. in biochemistry,” said Gao. “We can see so many applications of computer science in our daily lives, and I think Baylor’s computer science department is well positioned to help meet critical societal needs. We have many opportunities in front of us, with a lot of growth potential. I look forward to working with the excellent faculty in our department to figure out how to make the most of those opportunities to impact our students and the world.”

Previously, Dr. Gao was a tenured full professor in the computer science and engineering department at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her research focuses on developing efficient algorithms to solve large scale data analytics problems in basic medicine and in clinical settings while making theoretical and fundamental contributions to machine learning, data mining, artificial intelligence, statistical pattern recognition and computer vision. Her research discoveries have been reported in more than 200 journal and conference manuscripts.

Dr. Gao has served as an associate editor for IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics since 2008 and previously chaired its steering committee. She is the recipient of prestigious National Science Foundation Early Career Award and is a Lifetime Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. 

She holds a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University, an M.S. in biomedical engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and a B.S. in biomedical engineering from Shanghai Medical University. 

Also joining the ECS faculty this fall:

Brent Craven, Ph.D., professor of mechanical engineering. A former assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State University, which is also where he earned his doctorate, Craven most recently served as the senior science advisor for modeling & simulations in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health Office of Science and Engineering Laboratories.

 Mengfei Ren, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer science, earned her doctorate at the University of Texas at Arlington. A former assistant professor at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, Ren’s research lies at the intersection of software engineering and cybersecurity.