As a graduate student at the University of California Santa Cruz, Jim Kent made national headlines in June, 2000 when he performed the public project human genome assembly hours ahead of Celera, helping to keep our collective DNA out of patent disputes for years to come. Jim went on to write BLAT and the UCSC Human Genome Browser to help analyze this important data. Jim received his PhD in Biology in 2002. He is currently a research scientist at UCSC where he helps maintain and upgrade the browser as well as other tools to help us understand the human genome.

Heidi Brumbaugh has been managing the licensing of BLAT since the early 2000s. She received her PhD in Linguistics from Simon Fraser University in 2015. In addition to her work at Kent Informatics, she develops vocabulary learning tools for second language learners, particularly the Vocab Victor Word Learning app.