A native of Poughkeepsie, NY, Wilson Hsieh received his SB & SM (1988), and Ph.D. (1995) degrees in Computer Science from MIT. He graduated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi as an undergraduate, and was awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Fellowship in 1988, which funded his doctoral research in software mechanisms for parallel computing.

After a postdoctoral stint at the University of Washington in Seattle, Hsieh has been an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Utah since 1997. In 1999, he won the prestigious NSF CAREER award for young faculty to pursue his work on optimizing compilers.

Wilson Hsieh, a sought-after violist and chamber musician has performed in cities such as Salt Lake City, Seattle, San Diego, Poughkeepsie, Boston and Cambridge; and has appeared in concert with musicians such as Marcus Thompson, Lynn Chang and Bion Tsang.

While a student at MIT, Hsieh studied viola with Professor Marcus Aurelius Thompson. Hsieh served as principal violist of the MIT symphony from 1984-1985, but opted to focus on the chamber music repertoire in subsequent years. An active member of Thompson's Chamber Music Society and the MIT Chamber Players from 1984-1995, he gained extensive experience with chamber music for viola and gave five solo recitals at MIT's Killian Hall from 1989-1994. In 1995, he was featured in a concert of viola duets and quartets with Thompson.