Ron Dror is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and (by courtesy) Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University, where he is also affiliated with the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering, Bio-X, ChEM-H, and the Biophysics Program. Dr. Dror's research at Stanford addresses a broad set of computational biology problems related to the spatial organization and dynamics of biomolecules and cells.
Before joining Stanford in March 2014, Dr. Dror served as second-in-command of D. E. Shaw Research, a hundred-person company, having joined in 2002 as its first hire. At DESRES, he focused on high-performance computing and biomolecular simulation—in particular, developing technology that accelerates molecular dynamics simulations by orders of magnitude, and applying these simulations to the study of protein function, protein folding, and protein-drug interactions (part of a project highlighted by Science as one of the top 10 scientific breakthroughs of 2010).
Dr. Dror earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, an MPhil in Biological Sciences as a Churchill Scholar at the University of Cambridge, and both a BA in Mathematics and a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University, summa cum laude. As a student, he worked in genomics, vision, image analysis, and neuroscience. He has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and the Whitaker Foundation, as well as a Gordon Bell Prize and several Best Paper awards.