Professor Michael Spencer Waterman is a scientist at the University of Southern California (USC), where he holds an Endowed Associates Chair in Biological Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science. He previously held positions at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Idaho State University. He grew up near Bandon, Oregon and earned a bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Oregon State University, followed by a doctorate in statistics and probability from Michigan State University in 1969.Waterman was awarded the 2015 Dan David Prize for his contributions to the field of bioinformatics.