Gonçalo Abecasis
Biomedical researcher
Gonçalo Rocha Abecasis (born 1976) is a Portuguese American biomedical researcher at the University of Michigan, serves as Vice President & Chief Genomics and Data Science Officer at the Regeneron Genetics Center, and was chair of the Department of Biostatistics in the School of Public Health. He leads a group at the Center for Statistical Genetics in the Department of Biostatistics, where he is also the Felix E. Moore Collegiate Professor of Biostatistics and director of the Michigan Genomic Initiative. His group develops statistical tools to analyze the genetics of human disease.
Education and early life
Abecasis is the oldest of 12 children in his family, born in Moura to José Manuel and Maria Teresa. He grew up in Portugal and Macau (then Portuguese Macau). After learning computer programming in a high school club, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Genetics from the University of Leeds in 1997, working with Marie-Anne Shaw, and a D. Phil in human genetics from the University of Oxford in 2001, working with William Cookson and Lon Cardon.
Research
Abecasis works on statistical and computational approaches to human genetic disease, including psoriasis and cardiovascular diseases. His group develops tools to analyze and visualize biomedical data, often using C++. He first applied his programming knowledge during his Ph.D. studies to develop tools to analyze the data on asthma susceptibility that his project was generating. He continued as a biostatistician when he moved to Michigan in 2001, where he was recruited and mentored by Michael Boehnke.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Gonçalo Abecasis” as biomedical researcher. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as biomedical researcher. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16001382. The Library of Congress control number is n2016187443. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1976, 1997 and 2001.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Gonçalo Abecasis”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Gonçalo Abecasis primary sources, Gonçalo Abecasis archive and Gonçalo research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Gonçalo Abecasis”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Gonçalo Abecasis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.