Esko Ukkonen (born 1950) is since 1985 Professor of Computer Science of the 
University of Helsinki. His research interests include algorithms and data structures, 
combinatorial pattern matching, machine learning, and computational  biology. 
He has authored more than 160 original scientific articles. Dr Ukkonen has had 
visiting positions at the University of California, Berkeley, University 
of Freiburg, University of Bielefeld, and King's College London. In 1999-2001, he was the chairman 
of the Finnish Society for Computer Science, in 1999-2004 an academy professor 
of the Academy of Finland, and in 2002-2013 the director of a center-of-excellence 
('From Data to Knowledge','Algorithmic Data Analysis') of the Academy of Finland. 
In 2004-2008, he was research director of the Helsinki Institute for Information 
Technology (HIIT), a joint institute of the Aalto University and the University 
of Helsinki, in 2010-2013 the head of the Department of Computer Science, and in 
2014-2017 the vice-dean (research) of the  Faculty of Science. Esko Ukkonen 
has received the Biotechnology Prize of the Alko Group (1996) and the Science 
Prize of the City of Helsinki (2007), and he is a member of the Finnish Academy 
of Science and Letters, a foreign member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, and 
a honorary doctor of the Aalto University.