Santiago Schnell is Professor of Molecular & Integrative Physiology and Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics at the University of Michigan Medical School. He is also a William K. Brehm Investigator at the same university. He received a M.Sc. in Biology from Universidad Simón Bolívar (Venezuela), and then a doctorate in Mathematical Biology from the University of Oxford (UK). Santiago held two prestigious research positions at the University of Oxford: Junior Research Fellow at Christ Church (a college of Oxford), and Senior Research Fellow of the Wellcome Trust at the Centre for Mathematical Biology. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, he was the Associate Director of the Biocomplexity Institute at Indiana University. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Mathematical Biosciences, Current Opinion in Systems Biology, and Cancer Research. He is a member of the Educational League of Excellence at the University of Michigan Medical School, and received the Indiana University Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence and the University of Michigan Endowment for Basic Science Teaching Award. He is a recipient of the 21st Century Scientist Award from the James S. McDonnell Foundation, and is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Presently, he serves as the President for the Society of Mathematical Biology.

Santiago is a mathematical scientist investigating complex biomedical systems in which modeling and theory aid in the identification of the key mechanisms underlying the behavior of a system as a whole. In his research, Santiago does not constrain himself to mathematical formalisms, but instead determines suitability based on the biomedical application under consideration.

His primary research contributions have been developing new approaches for measuring the kinetic parameters of biochemical reactions, and reworking generally-accepted theories of enzyme action and protein aggregation. Santiago’s long-term research goal is to continue using mathematical, computational, and statistical methods to develop quantitative approaches to investigate the behavior of biochemical reactions and biomedical complex systems.