Carl Kesselman

Carl Kesselman serves as the William H. Keck Professor of Engineering at the University of Southern California, holding joint appointments across Industrial and Systems Engineering, Computer Science, Population and Public Health Sciences, and Biomedical Sciences. He leads the Informatics research initiatives at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) and serves as Chief Scientist at Univa Corp., a high-performance computing software company he co-founded. Recognized as an ISI Fellow—the Institute's highest honor—he pioneered grid computing and medical informatics infrastructure.

His educational background includes a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California at Los Angeles. Kesselman joined ISI in 1997 as a Research Associate Professor in USC's Computer Science Department.

Research focuses on transforming healthcare through grid computing, data-intensive biomedical systems, and FAIR data principles. He co-developed the Globus open-source toolkit (the de facto grid computing standard) and Globus MEDICUS for medical image exchange. Current work drives NIH-funded initiatives including FaceBase (craniofacial data repository), GUDMAP (genitourinary development), RBK (kidney regeneration), and CFDE (cloud-based biomedical data ecosystem), emphasizing interoperable infrastructure for large-scale scientific collaboration.

Scientific recognition includes:

• ISI Fellow

Research is supported by National Institutes of Health consortia focusing on data standardization, cloud infrastructure (DERIVA system), and integrative biomolecular modeling. His team develops tools for medical imaging, genomic annotation, and cross-species phenotyping to accelerate translational research.

As leader of ISI's Informatics research area, he directs teams advancing grid computing, medical data security, and service-oriented architectures. Key projects include Protein Data Bank integration for biomolecular structures and Synapse for neural mapping, bridging high-performance computing with clinical applications to enable global healthcare innovation.