Data Management and Statistics Core Leader

Jonathan Haines, PhD, is an internationally recognized researcher and educator with extensive experience in all aspects of genetic epidemiology, with a particular focus on data analytics. He has applied his exper­tise to numer­ous neu­ro­log­i­cal and oph­thal­mo­log­i­cal dis­or­ders, and is credited with locating more than 20 causal and 200 asso­ci­ated genetic loci. He has led or collaborated on numerous national and international genetic epidemiology studies, lending his expertise to defining the genetic architecture of aging diseases including macular degeneration and Alzheimer’s Disease.   

He advocates for diversity in genetic sampling and a comprehensive view of data analytics, recognizing that environmental and social impacts can inform genetic expression and biomedical outcomes. By applying sophisticated, com­pu­ta­tional meth­ods to diverse, large data sets, he seeks to uncover contributing factors to disease and chronic conditions to inform how patients are cared for clinically and how communities shape healthy environments that support personal choices.  

Dr. Haines is the Mary W. Shel­don M.D. Pro­fes­sor of Genomic Sci­ences and Chair of the Depart­ment of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, which also is the administrative home of the Cleveland Insti­tute for Com­pu­ta­tional Biol­ogy, which he founded and directs. The Institute is a collaboration among Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, University Hospitals Cleveland, and the Cleveland Clinic. The Institute collaborates with health systems to lead data analytics based on hundreds of thousands of electronic health records to inform best practices in clinical care. Institute principals also collaborate with researchers beyond Cleveland, lending expertise in complex analytics that integrate genetic, biomedical and population health data to inform patient and community care. 

Dr. Haines serves on multiple advisory councils and is on the editorial board or reviews for numerous journals. Among his current appointments: NIH’s National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, the Scientific Advisory Panel to NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) Genome Sequencing Program, Board of Directors for the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD), and Executive Committee of the Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project, supported by NIH’s National Institute on Aging. Among the journal editorial boards on which he serves are Neurogenetics, Human Molecular Genetics, and Nature Genomic Medicine.   

Dr. Haines has held many academic appointments, beginning his early career at Harvard Medical School. He was a Professor of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine with joint appointments in several departments, including as Chief of the Division of Human Genomics, and founding director of the Center for Human Genetics Research. His academic appointments in addition to serving as Chair of the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine include professorships with the Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences and the Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences, as well as an appointment with the Lerner Research Institute at Cleveland Clinic.

See Dr. Haines’ “Meet the Investigator” interview.