Prior to joining UCSD in 2003, he spent seven years in the bio-science industry, ultimately as Director of Informatics Research, at Celera Genomics. At Celera, he participated in the human genome project, designing novel tools for gene discovery, and leading the analysis of mass spectrometry data for identifying cancer bio-markers. His current research focus is on computational problems arising is mass spectrometric data analysis, population genetics, non-coding genes, and cancer genomics. He is an Associate Editor for JBCB, IEEE TCBB, and Biology Direct, and has served on the program committees of ISMB, RECOMB, and other conferences. He has co-authored over seventy research articles in refereed journals and conference proceedings. Dr. Bafna is the Director of the Undergraduate Bioinformatics Program at UCSD.