Biomedical Informatics Instructors

Jorge Andrade, PhD, is currently the Director of Bioinformatics at the Center for Research Informatics (CRI) - University of Chicago. His research is currently focused on the development of new bioinformatics and biostatistics approaches, methods and tools, for the analysis of high throughput genomics and genetics data, including the applications of Next Generation Sequencing. Dr. Andrade leads a team of highly skilled bioinformatics scientists in the development of high quality analysis pipelines that are enabling discovery and collaborative research at the Biological Science Division.

Course(s): Advanced Bioinformatics: Genome Analysis

Michael Baltasi, PhD, has held leadership positions in corporate IT and university administration for 10+ years. He currently serves as Deputy Director of the Center for Research Informatics at the University of Chicago. In this role, Michael oversees financial planning, marketing, and the project portfolio for the organization, and serves as a key decision-maker in technical investments and industry partnerships. His teaching interests probe the intersection between data science and the conceptually-rich fields of managerial science and leadership theory.

Course(s): Leadership and Management for Informaticians

Cris Doloc, PhD, is the founder and CEO of ALGOMEX, a seed-stage tech venture that brings "disruptive" technologies from artificial intelligence and cognitive computing into the field of precision medicine. Dr. Doloc is a computational scientist and an accomplished technology leader with more than 25 years of experience in enterprise software architecture, machine learning & high performance computing.

Dr. Doloc holds a PhD in computational physics and brings a wealth of scientific and technology expertise by working in both academia and the industry. He has been the founder of three other tech startups.

Course(s): Concepts in Computer Programming

Prashila Dullabh, MD, is a Senior Fellow and Program Area Director in health informatics at NORC at the University of Chicago. Dr. Dullabh is a clinician informatician with more than 15 years of experience in informatics, health care and health services research.

Dr. Dullabh has a specific interest in health information exchange (HIE), consumer e-Health, clinical decision support and patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) and is particularly interested in the intersection of health informatics and policy. In her work as Senior fellow, she directs large evaluation, technical assistance and strategic projects for federal funders and foundations. Her project work has involved identifying gap areas and strategic investment opportunities for PCOR data infrastructure for the Department of Health and Human Services and research topic prioritization for the Patient-centered Outcomes Research Institute. She has also directed large program evaluations on HIE and health IT adoption and use.

Course(s): HIT Integration and Interoperability Standards

Larry Helseth, PhD, is a Translational Bioinformatician at NorthShore University HealthSystem in Evanston, Illinois. He was trained as a biochemist, has both wet lab and dry lab experience and has worked in both academics and the healthcare industry. His current role is developing software to analyze genomic data for integration into the patient’s medical record. Recent projects included helping to implement pharmacogenomics screening at NorthShore, developing software to help pathologists interpret cancer panel results and building a variant repository to manage genomic data. His research interests include integrating multiple ‘omics and using mass spectrometry to study protein structure and function.

Course(s): Introduction to Bioinformatics

Cheng-Kai Kao, MD, is an assistant professor and academic hospitalist in the department of medicine where he is the medical director of informatics, chair of the clinical process review committee, and medical director of international patient services. He is board certified in clinical informatics and his areas of interests include mobile health, clinical decision support, population health and international patient care. In his role as medical director of informatics, his work focuses on leveraging mobile technology to enhance clinical workflow, developing clinical decision support tools, and making innovations to improve care quality and patient experience.

Course(s): Healthcare Innovation and Entrepreneurship | Decision Support Systems & Health Care

Imran Khan, MBA, MS currently serves on the leadership team at AbbVie, a bio-pharmaceutical research company, leading the Technology organization for the Virology and Neurology therapeutic areas. In this role, he provides strategic direction and pragmatic insights for developing innovative technology solutions to enable healthcare providers and patients manage advanced medication therapies for some of the world's most complex diseases. Imran previously served on the Greater Chicago Chapter HIMSS Board of Directors for several years and continues to work with student communities in their professional development. His professional interests include Strategic Management, Healthcare Interoperability, Digital Health, Big Data, and Clinical Research.

Course(s): Capstone Project Proposal

Anoop Mayampurath, PhD, is a Senior Research Scientist at the Computation Institute and a Senior Statistician at the Center for Research Informatics, as well as an instructor for the MSCP program at The University of Chicago. His research interests lie in the application of statistical and machine learning algorithms for life science and medical studies. His work currently focuses on statistical modeling and analytics-research for clinical data towards improving patient outcome and hospital care.

Course(s): Applied Research/Clinical Informatics

Melvin Munsaka PhD, MSc, Med, is currently Director of Risk-Based and Late-Phase Analytics in the Safety Statistics and Risk-Based Analytics Department within the Takeda Data Science Institute. He received his PhD in Mathematical Statistics from Queen's University and also holds an MSc in Mathematical Statistics and MEd in Mathematics, both from McGill University in Canada. He has been in the pharmaceutical industry for more than 20 years. He is involved in initiatives in the DIA Bayesian Scientific Work Group and the ASA Biopharmaceutical Section. He is Publicity Chair of MBSW and has held positions of President, Program Chair, and Chapter Representative of NICASA and ASA SSPA Section Chair-Elect. He continues to pursue research in various areas of his interest in statistics, probability, data mining, and data science.

Course(s): Introduction to Biostatistics Prerequisite

His interests include data analytics, change management, health information technology, innovation, population health, and process improvement.

Course(s): Big Data and Health Care

Michael Stiehl,MS, is a Senior Policy Analyst with Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. With over fifteen years of experience in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial analysis he brings an extensive understanding of how to successfully incorporate GIS into sound project planning, strategy development and the use of metrics to guide implementation and evaluation. Mr. Stiehl’s areas of interest include public policy, with a focus on child welfare, community development, education and human services, data analysis, data visualization, strategic planning and policy development. Currently his work focuses on understanding complex human service delivery systems, administrative data and the role of state agencies and community based organizations in improving outcomes for vulnerable populations.

Course(s): Geographic Information Systems and Health Information

Samuel Volchenboum is associate professor of pediatrics and is a practicing pediatric oncologist. He directs the Center for Research Informatics, the 40-person group that provides research support to the Biological Sciences Division, including high-performance computing, HIPAA-compliant storage and backup, bioinformatics, and data warehousing and business analytics. Dr. Volchenboum oversees data governance efforts for the division and the medical center. In addition to being board certified in pediatrics and pediatric oncology, he completed a fellowship in and attained board certification in clinical informatics. His own research interests focus on leveraging large data sets to make inferences about and build models to describe and predict events in the hospital. He is faculty director for the Master Program in Biomedical Informatics in the Graham School

Course(s): Ethics and Policy Questions: Genomics, Health Care, and Big Data | Overview of Clinical Care Systems Prerequisite