David Sankoff (born December 31, 1942) is a Canadian mathematician, bioinformatician, computer scientist and linguist.

In particular, he had a key role in introducing dynamic programming[11] for sequence alignment and other problems in computational biology.

In Pavel Pevzner's words,[2] "Michael Waterman and David Sankoff are responsible for transforming bioinformatics from a ‘stamp collection' of ill-defined problems into a rigorous discipline with important biological applications."

[17] In 1973, Sankoff and Robert Cedergren developed a joint estimation method for phylogeny and multiple sequence alignment of 5S ribosomal RNA,[18] laying the algorithmic foundations of comparative genomics.

In 1980, Robert Cedergen and David Sankoff created the first research group in bioinformatics at the University of Montreal.