Master of Science in Biomedical Informatics
Biomedical Informatics Instructors
Deadlines and Events
In small, in-person classes, you’ll learn from renowned faculty and experts whose backgrounds in health, research, and technology allow you to develop the in-depth skill-set necessary for success in biomedical informatics.
Michael Baltasi, PhD
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.
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Prashila Dullabh, MD
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.
Read about Dr. Dullabh's discussion on the Role of Health Information Technology in Clinical Decision Support.
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Jason Edelstein, MS
An information security professional with an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and a masters in Computer Science, both from the University of Chicago, Jason Edelstein’s experience covers everything from securing email gateways to academic systems management to teaching and mentoring. Currently IT Risk and Compliance Program Manager at the University of Chicago.
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Larry Helseth, PhD
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.
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Cheng-Kai Kao, MD
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.
Read about Dr. Kao's Push to Develop Healthcare Informatics Through Entrepreneurship and Innovation and see what he's doing to help realize the potential of technology in healthcare.
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Imran Khan, MBA, MS
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.
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Master of Science in Biomedical Informatics:
- MSBI 39901: Capstone Proposal
Anoop Mayampurath, PhD
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.
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Melvin Munsaka PhD, MSc, MEd
Melvin is currently a Director in the Safety Statistics and Risk-Based Analytics Group within the Data Science Institute at Takeda Development Center Americas, Inc. in Deerfield, Illinois. He received his PhD in Mathematical Statistics from Queen's University in Canada 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 and has participated in several global drug submissions. He is also involved in some initiatives of the Drug Information Association Bayesian Scientific Work Group and the American Statistical Association of the Biopharmaceutical Section. He has been the Publicity Chair of Midwest Biopharmaceutical Statistical Workshop since 2005. He has also held positions of President, Program Chair, and Chapter Representative of the Northeast Illinois Chapter of the American Statistical Association and Section for Statistical Programmers and Analysts of the American Statistical Association Section Chair-Elect. He continues to pursue research in various areas of his interest in statistics, probability, data mining, and data science.
Courses
Master of Science in Biomedical Informatics:
- Introduction to Biostatistics Prerequisite
Krishna G. Ramachandran, MBA, MS
Krishna has been a leader in health care for more than 15 years. He currently serves as a Vice President at Blue Cross Blue Shield, responsible for developing and executing their health data exchange strategy with providers and external partners across five states. Before joining BCBS in November 2017, he served as Chief Administrative Officer of DuPage Medical Group and its subsidiary Boncura Health Solutions. Other roles at DuPage included Chief Information and Transformation Officer. Prior to DuPage, he held leadership roles at Epic Systems Corporation. Krishna teaches in The University of Chicago’s Master of Science in Biomedical Informatics program and is actively involved in healthcare associations and local nonprofits. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (India); a Master of Science degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago; and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
His interests include data analytics, change management, health information technology, innovation, population health, and process improvement.
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Nicholas Soulakis, PhD
A population health scientist and assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, Nicholas Soulakis’ research focus lies at the intersection of epidemiology and informatics with an emphasis on understanding the data-rich environment created by health information technology. By leveraging computationally intensive analytical techniques to monitor healthcare quality, his current work seeks to develop a more comprehensive scientific approach to understanding the dynamics of care coordination for hospitalized patient populations.
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Michael Stiehl, MS
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.
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Samuel Volchenboum, MD, PhD, MS
Faculty Director, MScBMI
Dr. Volchenboum is an associate professor of pediatrics and the associate chief research informatics officer for the biological sciences division at the University of Chicago. He is the Dean of Masters Programs and directs a program in health sciences informatics for the division. His clinical specialty is pediatric hematology / oncology, caring for kids with cancer and diseases of the blood. In addition to his clinical practice, he directs the University of Chicago’s Pediatric Cancer Data Commons, a research group dedicated to liberating and democratizing data for pediatric malignancies.
Until 2019, Dr. Volchenboum directed the Center for Research Informatics, a 40-person group that supports biological research throughout the division. As director of this center, he oversaw high-performance computing, HIPAA-compliant storage and backup, application development to support clinical trials, development and maintenance of the clinical trials management system, the clinical research data warehouse, data analytics and visualization, and bioinformatics, including high-throughput genomic analyses and machine learning. He participates in and leads various data governance initiatives throughout the University and medical center. He is the director of the Informatics Core for the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA). Since 2015, he has been the faculty director for the Masters in Biomedical Informatics at the University of Chicago.
Read about Dr. Volchenboum's Lecture on the Use of Clinical Informatics and Big Data for Hospital Safety.
Courses
Master of Science in Biomedical Informatics:
- MSBI 31500: Ethics and Policy Questions: Genomics, Health Care, and Big Data
- Overview of Clinical Care Systems Prerequisite