held positions at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Idaho State University.

He focuses on applying mathematics, statistics, and computer science techniques to various problems in molecular biology.

In particular, the Smith-Waterman algorithm (developed with Temple F. Smith) is the basis for many sequence alignment programs.

[9] In 1988, Waterman and Eric Lander published a landmark paper describing a mathematical model for fingerprint mapping.

[6] Waterman has written a memoir, Getting Outside,[7] of a childhood spent on an isolated livestock ranch on the southern coast of Oregon in the mid-20th century.