Michael Snyder is the Stanford Ascherman Professor and Chair of Genetics and the Director of the Center of Genomics and Personalized Medicine.

He is a leader in the field of functional genomics and proteomics, and one of the major participants of the ENCODE project.

His laboratory study was the first to perform a large-scale functional genomics project in any organism, and has launched many technologies in genomics and proteomics.

He is a cofounder of several biotechnology companies, including Protometrix (now part of Life Tehcnologies), Affomix (now part of Illumina), Excelix, and Personalis, and he presently serves on the board of a number of companies.