Alemayehu Abebe, PhD, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences UTHSC-H, Ph.D., Universitat Zurich, 2003.
Research Interest
A major interest of our laboratory is to understand the thermodynamic principles of specificity in cell signaling and molecular transport by means of computational and theoretical techniques. The advent of petaflop computational resources and the fast-paced progress in coarse-grained modeling create unprecedented opportunities for simulating processes that span a vast range of time and length scales, such as cell signaling and molecular transport. These computational studies will allow us to investigate normal and aberrant properties of protein-protein and protein-membrane complexes in atomic detail. Other areas of interest include the basis of allosteric communication in signaling complexes, enzyme catalysis, molecular recognition and drug design. We develop and apply a variety of computational techniques, including classical and advanced molecular and Brownian dynamics simulations, structural bioinformatics, binding free energy calculations and related methods. Results from these studies will be the engines of new concepts and hypotheses to drive discovery efforts and experimental work.
For more information, contact Dr. Abebe at:
Email: Alemayehu.G.Abebe@uth.tmc.edu or http://www.uth.tmc.edu/agorfe_lab/
Ananth Annapragada, PhD, Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B. Tech, A.C. College of Technology, 1985; Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1989.
Ananth Annapragada is Associate Professor in the School of Health Information Sciences at UTHSC-H. He holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan (1984-89) in the Gulari group, did post-doctoral work first at the University of Minnesota and then at MIT from 1989- 1991, in the laboratory of Klavs Jensen. He then joined Abbott Laboratories as a Research Scientist and worked in 3 different divisions of the company (Bulk Drugs, Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics). In 1996, he left Abbott to work at SEQUUS, (Menlo Park CA) where the Stealth liposome was invented, and remained there as a Product Development Manager through their acquisition by ALZA and the subsequent acquisition of ALZA by J&J. In 2000 he moved to Cleveland OH as Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at Cleveland State University and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and was named Director of the Applied Biomedical Engineering program shortly afterwards. In 2003, he moved to UTHSC-H, to his current position. He also holds positions in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the Keck Institute for Computational and Structural Biology, and at the University of Houston Department of Chemical Engineering. Professionally, he continues to bridge the worlds of Mathematics, Engineering, and Biology, His group, the Laboratory for Computational Biology and Delivery Systems is accessible on the web. For the last 3 years, he has been an active member of the MABS (Mathematical Analysis of Biological Systems) study section at NIH. Recent honors he has received include the Chandran Lectureship in Neuro Oncology at Duke University, and an invitation to the National Academy of Sciences/Keck Futures Initiative conference on Nanotechnology in Biology and Medicine. He is also a co-founder of Marval Therapeutics Inc., a company that seeks to commercialize some of the technologies developed in his laboratory. For more information, contact Dr. Annapragada at: Email: Ananth.Annapragada@uth.tmc.edu
Noriaki Aoki, MD, PhD, MS; MBA Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UT-Houston. Adjunct Assistant Professor, Division of International Health, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Japan, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Showa University School of Medicine, Japan, President, Center for Health Outcomes Research and Development, Japan. M.D., Sapporo Medical University, 1991; Ph.D., Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine, 2002; M.S., The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 2001, MBA, University of Massachusetts, 2007.
Dr. Aoki is a board certified physician in Internal Medicine and Emergency and Critical Care Medicine in Japan, and a fellow member of the Japanese Society of Internal Medicine. He has a PhD in clinical epidemiology and decision science from the Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine and Master of Science in Health Informatics from the School of Health Information Science, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He also completed his post-doctoral research in decision science and medical informatics at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX. Dr. Aoki has conducted wide-ranging collaborative researches locally, nationally and internationally.
Dr. Aoki has major interests in clinical data analysis to improve process and outcomes of clinical care, which includes data mining, text mining, decision analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, geographic information systems, and various simulations. He has also done extensive research in decision-making /decision support system, especially in extreme environment, such as disasters, trauma care and space medicine. He has also started projects related to knowledge management & edutainment system development utilizing small handheld devices.
For more information, contact Dr. Aoki at:
Email: Noriaki.Aoki@uth.tmc.edu
Jonas Almeida, PhD; Adjunct Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, Professor, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, UT MD Anderson, B.S., University of Lisbon, Portugal, 1989; Ph.D., University Nova of Lisbon, Portugal.
Dr. Almeida is a professor of Bioinformatics and Computations Biology at UT MD Anderson, and he completed his postdoctoral training in microbial ecology at the University of Tennessee. His research encompasses cardiovascular proteomics, and various other areas of bioinformatics. He has numerous publications and was awarded a science award of the Gulbenkian Institute for science in Lisbon, Portugal.
For more information, contact Dr. Almeida at:
Email: jalmeida@mdanderson.org
J. Robert Beck, MD; Adjunct Professor, Health Information Sciences, and Fox Chase Cancer Center. UTHSC-H. B.A., Dartmouth College, 1974; M.D., John Hopkins University, 1978; Clinical Fellow in Medicine, New England Medical Center, 1982.
Dr. Beck is an internationally recognized expert in medical decision-making and is editor of the premier journal in that area. Dr. Beck is a founding member of the Fellows of the American College of Medical Informatics.
For more information, contact Dr. Beck at:
Email: JR_Beck@fccc.edu
Elmer V. Bernstam, MD, MSE, MS; Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, Clinical Instructor, Internal Medicine, UTHSC-H, and Attending Physician, Internal Medicine, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital. B.S. and B.S.E., M.D., M.S.E., University of Michigan, 1992, 1995, 1999; M.S., Stanford University, 2001.
Dr. Bernstam is a board-certified in internal medicine and continues to practice. He completed a National Library of Medicine fellowship at Stanford Medical Informatics. His research focuses on clinical informatics; specifically on information retrieval, clinical practice guidelines and consumer informatics.
For more information, contact Dr. Bernstam at: Email: Elmer.V.Bernstam@uth.tmc.edu
Stefan Birmanns, PhD; M.S. Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, M.S., Ph.D., University of Aachen, 1999, 2003. Post Doctoral studies, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, 2006.
Dr. Birmanns is an Assistant Professor at the School of Health Information Sciences. His research areas include biocomputing, molecular modeling, virtual reality, haptic rendering, visualization, macromolecular machines, and image processing. He uses haptic rendering for interactive multiresolution fitting of biophysical data sets.
For more information, contact Dr. Birmanns at:
Email: Stefan.Birmanns@uth.tmc.edu
Eric Boerwinkle, PhD; Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, and Professor, Human Genetics Center, School of Public Health, UTHSC-H. B.S., University of Cincinnati, Ohio, 1980; M.A., M.S., Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1984, 1985.
Dr. Boerwinkle is a nationally and internationally recognized scientist in human genetic and cardiovascular research. His research encompasses the genetic analysis of common chronic diseases in humans. Diseases currently being analyzed are coronary heart disease, hypertension, and noninsulin dependent (type II) diabetes. This work includes localizing genes that contribute to disease risk, identification of potentially functional mutations within these genes, testing these candidate functional mutations in experimental systems, defining the impact of gene variation on the epidemiology of disease, and determining the extent to which these genes interact with environmental factors to contribute to disease. Research and training opportunities include genetic analysis methods and applications and genome database integration. He has numerous publications, book chapters and funded research and he has received multiple honors and awards. Dr. Boerwinkle serves on the editorial board of Genetic Epidemiology and Circulation. He teaches medical and graduate students at the Health Science Center.
For more information, contact Dr. Boerwinkle at:
Email: eric.boerwinkle@uth.tmc.edu
Juliana Brixey, Ph.D., RN, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S., A.D., Missouri Southern State College, 1974, 1978; B.S.N., M.S.N., University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, 1995, 2000; Ph.D., School of Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, 2006. Dr. Brixey is an Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas. She has numerous publications and her research includes interruptions to healthcare providers in clinical workspaces. Her dissertation was Understanding Interruptions in Healthcare: Developing a Model.
For more information, contact Dr. Brixey at:
Email: jbrixey@kumc.edu
Claudio Cavasotto, PhD; Assistant Professor, Health Information Science, UTHSC-H, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences, UTHSC-H, Adjoint Professor, Biomedical Engineering, UT- Austin; B.S., Ph.D., University of Buenos Aires, 1988, 1999, Post Doctoral Studies, The Scripps Research Institute, 2002.
Dr. Cavasotto is an Assistant Professor at the School of Health Information Sciences. His research interests include the development, validation, and application of relevant biomedical theoretical problems and in silico methods for high-resolution protein modeling, ligand-based and structure based drug discovery, and study of protein interaction and function. Computational methods include docking, virtual screening 2D- an 3D-QSAR, pharmacophore modeling, molecular dynamics and quantum chemistry approaches. His support tasks also include simulation theory, force-field development and cheminformatics.
For more information, contact Dr. Cavasotto at:
Email: Claudio.N.Cavasotto@uth.tmc.edu
Jung-Wei Chen, D.D.S., MS, PhD, Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. Dr. Chen has very broad of research interests. Dr. Chen has done research in human centered design in clinical electronic health record; Technology usage in dental education, interface evaluation, long distance health care (teledentistry). Dr. Chen is also active in dental clinical related research, such as HIV positive patient, sedation, cone beam CT, cleft lip and palate repair etc. Dr. Chen is trying to apply technology in health care and doing clinical care with informatician’s keen evaluation. The clinic in Loma Linda University now is using paperless chart and radiography. A lot of research projects are now undergoing to evaluate the information flow and how to improve the functionality in the EDR systems.
For more information, contact Dr. Chen at:
Email: JWChen@llu.edu
Wah Chiu, Ph.D.; Adjunct Professor, Health Information Sciences, UT-Houston and Baylor College of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. B.A., Ph.D., University of California, Berkley, 1969, 1975. Dr. Chiu’s research is in the field of electron cryomicroscopy and bioinformatics using computer enhancement and molecular 3-dimensional modeling of bacteria and viruses. He has numerous publications and teaches graduate courses.
For more information, contact Dr. Chiu at:
Email: Wah@bcm.tmc.edu
Trevor Cohen, MBChB, PhD, Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. MBChB, University of Cape Town, 1999; M.Phil and Ph.D., Columbia University.
Dr. Cohen’s primary research interest is in distributional semantics, or put somewhat more simply what machines can learn about meaning from human use of language. Current application areas include knowledge discovery and biomedical information retrieval. In addition, how humans detect and recover from error, in particular medical error in the critical care environment. While much attention has focused on the issue of error in medicine, very little of this attention has been directed at the mechanisms of error recovery in this domain. This line of research aims to redress this imbalance.
For more information, contact Dr. Cohen at:
Email: Trevor.Cohen@uth.tmc.edu
Victorio Cristini, PhD; Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, Associate Professor, Systems Biology, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Adjoint Professor, Biomedical Engineering, UT- Austin. Laurea, University of Rome, 1994, Ph.D., Yale University, 2000, Post Doctoral Studies, University of Minnesota, 2001, 2002.
Dr. Cristini is an expert in the fields of complex fluids, microfluidics, complex (bio) materials, mathematical/computational modeling of cancer and nanomathematics, where he has organized numerous domestic and international conferences and has published book chapters and numerous articles in journals. Dr. Cristini is also an editor for journals in the fields of bioengineering and nanotechnology. Dr. Cristini received the prestigious “Andreas Acrivos Dissertation Award in Fluid Dynamics.” Dr. Cristini’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Cancer Institute, the Department of Defense, the State of California, the State of Texas, Orqis Medical, Dekk-Tec, and Merck.
For more information, contact Dr. Cristini at:
Email: Vittorio.Cristini@uth.tmc.edu
Kim Dunn, MD, PhD; Assistant Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.A., The University of Texas at Austin, 1983; M.D., The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 1990; Ph.D., The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 1990.
Dr. Dunn is a practicing general internist who leads the Laboratory for Telehealth and Distributed Computing at the School of Health Information Sciences. She has extensive experience in starting new companies and advising people in issues related to start-up technology companies in the healthcare space. She serves as Chairperson of the Your Doctor Program (a practice model to integrate finance, delivery, cost-effective technology, and accountability for healthcare) and Vice-President of the Schull Institute, a non-profit organization to foster international development. Prior to joining the faculty, she was Vice Chair of Internal Medicine at UTMB and played a leading role in developing the telemedicine program and outcomes management program for the Texas Prison System. At SHIS, she teaches Telemedicine, Consultation in Health Informatics, Project Management, and Advanced Informatics. She assists in developing the strategic directions for the SHIS.
For more information, contact Dr. Dunn at:
Email: Kim.Dunn@uth.tmc.edu
Mary Edgerton, MD, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H and Professor, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. M.D., Medical College of Pennsylvania; 1994, Ph.D., The University of East Anglia, 1979, B.S. University of Texas, 1976.. She is board certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology and was an Assistant Professor of Pathology at Vanderbilt University and an Associate Professor in the Division of Anatomic Pathology at the Moffitt Cancer Center before coming to MD Anderson, where she is currently an Associate Professor with tenure. Dr. Edgerton’s research is focused on discovery of mechanisms in cancer genesis and progression. She works on the development of mathematical models for computer simulations of spread of ductal carcinoma in situ, and the role of cell motility in extensive disease. She also researches methods for the analysis of gene expression array data for pathway and molecular targets discovery. She has published on the application of these methods to lung cancer and breast cancer profiles data, and is currently extending this analysis to premalignant breast disease and to brain cancer. In addition to researching mechanisms, Dr. Edgerton has worked on the development of integrated information platforms for tissue acquisition, clinical annotation, and molecular profiling. She has contributed to the development of standards for data sharing and to ontologies to be used for tissue annotation. She is currently working with the clinical and research informatics systems to implement an “adapter” strategy to make MD Anderson compliant with the Cancer Bioinformatics Grid (CaBIG).
For more information, contact Dr. Edgerton at:
Email: medgerton@mdanderson.org
Oliver Esch, MD, Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S. Technical University of Aachen, 1973; M.D., Aachen Medical School, 1983.
Dr. Oliver Esch is an academic physician and scientist who has most recently served as Section Head/ Director of PACS, Computer Operations, and Director of the General Clinical Research Center Whole Body Counter and Body Composition Laboratory, at The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX. His responsibilities included the assessment, planning and implementation of one of the largest continuous speech recognition systems for medical reporting in the US. Other professional responsibilities have included: Planning and implementation of a departmental Local Area Network and Wide Area Network access, an Image Research Laboratory (Sun and SGI), a DICOM server, Web based imaging applications, upgrade and integration of applications into Radiology and Hospital IS; planning and implementation of Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS), Computed and Digital Radiography, as well as comprehensive systems planning. On an institutional level he has served as faculty liaison for all imaging related aspects of Telemedicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch. The UTMB Telemedicine program is one of the most comprehensive in the US. He has published, lectured, and taught extensively in Academic Surgery, Gastroenterology, and Radiology, and on Medical Information Technology, Digital Imaging, Telemedicine, DICOM and related Standards, and Speech Recognition. He serves on the editorial and review board of several academic publications, and has published both in the peer reviewed as well as popular-scientific literature. He is involved in numerous related professional organization and committees, and has provided consulting services to the health care industry since 1993. These included assignments by Texas Instruments, companies in the US and European markets, and non-for-profit organizations. Dr. Esch now serves on the Board of a Houston based Biotechnology company, and as Principal Scientist of several interdisciplinary expert teams working on health information technology and environmental health projects of national and long-range importance. One focus of this work is the application of healthcare related information technology to environmental health and health risk assessment problems, and resulting community health improvement for minority, underserved, and remote communities, among them Native American groups. His current academic affiliation includes appointments in Health Informatics at the U T-Houston, in Preventive Medicine and Community Health at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, and in Diagnostic Imaging at the University of Toronto, Ontario.
For more information, contact Dr. Esch at:
Email: oesch@radcom.org
Mauro Ferrari, Ph.D.; Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H and Professor, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases, Chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering, UTHSC-H; Professor, Univ. of TX, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Rice University, Univ. of TX Medical Branch at Galveston. Ph.D., Universita’ di Padova, 1985; M.S., Ph.D., Univ. of California, Berkley, 1987, 1989.
Research Interests: Biomedical nanotechnology; translational science; medical therapeutics in drug delivery application in oncology, cardiovascular disease and diabetes; biosensors and bioseparation technology; multiscale discrete/continuum mechanics and biomechanics Research in my laboratory is directed at the early detection of disease from biological fluids, the autonomous (time-controlled and spatially directed) delivery of therapeutics agents, the continuous monitoring of disease progression, and the real-time evaluation of the efficacy of therapeutic intervention. We have completed work that demonstrates how silicon-based implants can be engineered to provide long-term therapeutic delivery for treatment of chronic and acute conditions. Our laboratory has pioneered the development of proteomic nanodevices for analysis of low-concentration biomarkers in biological fluids.
Depending on the student’s interests, a tutorial in my laboratory would provide experience in working with silicon-based nanotechnologies for drug delivery, proteomics, or cell transplantation. The laboratory will also provide training opportunities in the multiscale mathematical modeling of biological phenomena in health and disease.
For more information, contact Dr. Ferrari at:
Email: Mauro.Ferrari@uth.tmc.edu
Yuriy Fofanov, Ph.D; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H and Assistant Professor, Computer Science, University of Houston. M.S., Ph.D.; Kuibyshev (Samara) State University, 1977, 1988. Dr. Fofanov’s research areas are bioinformatics, applied statistics, mathematical modeling, information theory, causality in genetic networks, microarray technology, gene/protein expression and DNA sequence analysis, Structural identification of non-linear dependencies, mathematical methods of discovering non-linear conformities in experimental data, and planning of experiments on discovering nonlinear regularity. He has written several book chapters and journal articles. He holds a patent for method of invariants and apparatus for modeling causal relationships between genes. For more information, contact Dr. Fofanov at: Email: yfofanov@uh.edu Amy Franklin, PhD; Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S. University of Houston, 1999; M.S., Ph.D.,University of Chicago, 2007. Dr. Franklin is a cognitive scientist with interdisciplinary training in cognitive Psychology and Linguistics. She has done research in psycholinguistics including studies of language and gesture, conversational negotiation, deception, and language acquisition. As part of the Center for Cognitive Informatics and Decision Making, her research focus is on reducing medical errors and improving care through a better understanding of human thought processes including decision-making and the dynamics of group and human-computer interactions. She has authored and co-authored numerous papers and has been invited to present her work at conferences worldwide. Dr. Franklin has received research support from the Keck Foundation, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and the National Institute of Health. For more information, contact Dr. Franklin at: John C. Frenzel, MD, MS; Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H and Associate Professor, Dept. of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center. B.S., B.A., Emory University, 1984; M.D., Baylor College of Medicine, 1989; M.S., UTHSC-H, 2002. Dr. Frenzel focuses his research on the use of Electronic Medical Records and their impact on the economics and quality of healthcare delivery. He is the Medical Director of the Ambulatory Surgery Center and Preoperative Consultation Center at M.D. Anderson where these technologies are being used to transform care for patients and practitioners in the Perioperative environment. He has coauthored a book, written articles and lectured on the impact of these applications and healthcare. For more information, contact Dr. Frenzel at: Email: johnfrenzel@odxc.com
Lex Frieden, LL.D. (Hon.), MA; Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, Professor, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, UTHSC-Hem. B.S., University of Tulsa, 1971, M.A., University of Houston, 1979, LL.D. (Hon.), University of Ireland, 2004. Lex Frieden is professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He is also senior vice president at Memorial Hermann TIRR (The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research) and director of the ILRU research, training and technical assistance program at TIRR. He has served as chairperson of the National Council on Disability, president of Rehabilitation International, and chairperson of the American Association of People with Disabilities. Frieden was instrumental in conceiving and drafting the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
For more information, contact Professor Frieden at:
Email: Lex.Frieden@uth.tmc.edu
Tsuguya Fukui, MD, MPH, PhD: Adjunct Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H and Vice President of St. Luke’s International Hospital and Professor Emeritus, University of Kyoto. MD, Kyoto University, 1976; MPH, Harvard University, 1984; PhD, Saga Medical School, 1990. Dr. Fukui is a General Medicine physician. His research interests include objective evaluation of medical practices and technologies using clinical epidemiology and decision sciences to qualitative research in medical education and ethical issues. Among his accomplishments are initiatives in establishing the Department of General Medicine, the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and the first data management center at a national university in Japan. He helps young doctors to become clinical researchers. He introduced the concept of Evidence-based Medicine in the medical community and to the public in Japan. He has written many articles and books in Japanese. He has also translated 22 books into Japanese. He is on the editorial board of the Japanese Journal of Public Health, Journal of Integrated Medicine, The Journal of the Japanese Society of Internal Medicine, Journal of Epidemiology, General Medicine, and Journal of General Internal Medicine.
For more information, contact Dr. Fukui at:
Email: fkts@luke.or.jp
David Gorenstein, PhD, Professor, Health Information Sciences, and Deputy Director and James T. Willerson Distinguished Chair, The Brown Institute of Molecular Medicine,. Ph.D, Harvard University, 1969, AM, Harvard University, 1967, SB, M.I.T, 1966. Our group is involved in proteomics, drug design, nanotechnology, and computational chemistry. We are also interested in the development of biophysical applications of NMR spectroscopy to probe the detailed structure and dynamics of biological molecules, including RNA, DNA, proteins and drug complexes. We have a major program in proteomics and nanotechnology for both diagnostics and therapeutics. This involves the development of dithiophosphate oligonucleotide analogues and thiophosphate aptamer (“thioaptamer”) combinatorial selection technologies and the use of thioaptamer nanoparticles as countermeasures for biodefense and emerging infectious diseases and cancer. We are also developing with Sandia National Laboratory a hand-held, Point-of-Care thioaptamer microfluidics chip-based proteomics diagnostics technology.
For more information, contact Dr. Gorenstein at:
Email: David.G.Gorenstein@uth.tmc.edu
James Griffiths, MD, Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, and Executive Director, Clinical Technology, Medical School, UTHSC-H, M.D., University of Texas Health Science Center- Medical School, 1991.
For more information contact Dr. Griffiths at:
Email: James.J.Griffiths@uth.tmc.edu
Jorge R. Herskovic, MD, PhD; Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S., M.D., Universidad de Chile, 2000-2002; M.S., Ph.D., The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 2005-2008. Dr. Herskovic’s research interests focus on information retrieval, data mining, and machine learning. I am currently working on machine learning for data mining large clinical data warehouses under the UT CCTS. His Ph.D. research focused on graph-based ranking as a novel way of selecting indexing terms for biomedical articles.
For more information, contact Dr. Herskovic at:
Email: Jorge.R.Herskovic@uth.tmc.edu
Chiehwen Ed Hsu, PhD; Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, and School of Public Health, UTHSC-H,. B.S., Fujen Catholic University, 1994; M.P.H., M.S., Ph.D., University of Texas Houston, 1997, 2000, 2001. Dr. Hsu has served as a director of a masters of public health program and is a professor of public health informatics. His research encompasses emergency preparedness for bioterrorism situations and its delivery to emergency responders and health professionals. Dr. Hsu has numerous book chapters, articles published and is also a member of the American Public Health Association. His lab seeks to enhance the understanding of public health informatics in addressing current critical public health challenges, including disaster informatics, informatics in vulnerable populations in health and human services, emergency preparedness and response, and reduction of health disparities.
For more information, contact Dr. Hsu at:
Email: Chiehwen.E.Hsu@uth.tmc.edu
Robert L. Hunter, MD, PhD; Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, and Professor and Chair, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Medical School. B.S., Harvard University, 1961; M.S., M.D., Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1965, 1965, 1969. Dr. Hunter is chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Medical School. Dr. Hunter has over 200 publications in his field of pathology. He has worked with information systems as a critical part of his professional activities for most of his career. The key focus of his work is developing improved means of facilitating professional work of pathologists. This includes development of information system resources to be used as aids to memory and time savers in diagnosing difficult cases across a spectrum of disease conditions. This includes wed based algorithms for efficient leading one to the correct diagnosis in a complex field. In addition, much work has been done on systems for facilitating communication among geographically dispersed pathologists. Telepathology systems that transmit live high quality images over the web are being used for conferences and for consultation among professionals. Current work focuses on pen based tablet computes that can be used during daily work to facilitate more efficient navigation of the increasingly complex diagnostic processes. Cooperative work on these issues will benefit both departments and the students in particular.
For more information, contact Dr. Hunter at:
Email: Robert.L.Hunter@uth.tmc.edu
M. Sriram Iyengar, PhD; Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B. Technology, The Indian Institute of Technology, 1974; M.S., The Indian Institute of Sciences, 1977; M.S., Ph.D., The Ohio State University, 1980, 1995. Dr. Iyengar has focused his research in bio-medical informatics Research & Development including mathematical/statistical modeling, algorithms, and software development across diverse areas such as biochemistry, immunohematology, endocrinology, oncology, orthopedics, neural imaging, and clinical trials. He has extensive software development experience, most recently with Palm OS and web technologies.
For more information, contact Dr. Iyengar at:
Email: msriram@bcm.tmc.edu
John C. Joe, M.D., M.P.H.; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-. M.D., Texas A&M University Health Science Center, 1988; and M.P.H.; University of TX School of Public Health at Houston, 1993. Dr. Joe is the Informatics Specialist for Space Medicine and Health Care Systems at NASA. He is the Director of Medical Informatics, Baylor College of Medicine and Assistant Medical Director for Information Systems, Texas Children’s Hospital. He has developed software for the Baylor Family Practice Clinic. He is implementing an electronic medical record system in the Baylor Family Practice Clinic.
For more information, contact Dr. Joe at:
Email: jcjoe@bcm.edu
Constance M. Johnson, Ph.D., R.N.; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S.N., University of Connecticut, 1978; M.S., Ph.D., The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 2001, 2003. Dr. Johnson’s research interests focus on several areas of study: cancer prevention, information visualization, human-centered computing, and risk communication and representation. Dr. Johnson has over 20 years of experience in research and informatics in the area of health promotion and disease prevention. While at The University of Texas Health Science Center, Dr. Johnson studied under an F38-Applied Informatics Fellowship from the National Library of Medicine. She is currently working with a multidisciplinary team on the development of a cancer risk model and assessment tool based on published evidence of epidemiologic and clinical factors. In conjunction with this modeling work, she is working on a new approach to building web-based interfaces and on the development of an interactive website that hosts the model and considers risk representation to healthcare consumers.
For more information, contact Dr. Johnson at:
Email: constance.johnson@duke.edu
Craig W. Johnson, PhD; Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.A., B.S., M.A., Ph.D., University of Nebraska, 1966, 1967, 1973, 1978.
Dr. Johnson has been at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston since 1983. Dr. Johnson’s Ph.D. is in educational psychology with specialization in research, statistics and human learning. Dr. Johnson has taught or advised hundreds of faculty and graduate students in design, development, implementation, analysis, interpretation and publication of education and health oriented research and evaluation studies. While at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Dr. Johnson has presented or published numerous scholarly papers concerning effective use of computers in education and research (e.g., “Hypertutor Therapy for Interactive Instruction”, “Microcomputer-administered Research: What it means for Educational Researchers”, “Microcomputer as Teacher/Researcher in a Nontraditional Setting”, “Randomized Comparisons Among Health Informatics Students Identify Hypertutorial Features as Improving Web-Based Instruction”). He authored the computer game BlockAIDS - The AIDS Education Game. More recently, Dr. Johnson has become a recognized expert in the area of Web-based courseware research and development. He has developed a theoretical framework for the design of Web-based instruction (WBI) called the HyperTutor Model. Dr Johnson’s chief research efforts have focused on the production and evaluation of superior Web-based interdisciplinary learning environments while implementing evidence-based teaching (EBT) randomized control methodologies to evaluate WBI effects in the field. This research not only “bridges the gap”, but integrates randomized teaching and learning research with teaching practice, maximizing internal and external validity, while providing a model for WBI research in diverse health, science, mathematics, engineering and technology learning environments. Dr. Johnson is a winner of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston/ School of Health Information Sciences Outstanding Teacher Award and of the John P. McGovern Outstanding Teacher Award.
For more information, contact Dr. Johnson at:
Email: Craig.W.Johnson@uth.tmc.edu
Todd R. Johnson, PhD; Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S., M.S., Ph.D., Ohio State University, 1984, 1986, 1991. Dr. Johnson is an expert in cognitive science in healthcare, an area that improves healthcare and biomedical decision-making by designing processes, software, and devices that match the needs and cognitive capabilities of those who use them. His current work focuses on two areas: (1) improving patient safety by reducing medical errors caused by poor device and software interfaces, as well as errors that arise due to pressures placed on caregivers by the healthcare system in which they work; and (2) improving decision making and efficiency through user-centered software design and decision support systems.
For more information, contact Dr. Johnson at:
Email: Todd.R.Johnson@uth.tmc.edu
Shigekoto Kaihara, MD, PhD: Adjunct Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-. M.D., Ph.D., University of Tokyo, 1961, 1965. Dr. Kaihara has spent much of his time in the area of information processing and information system development. He has more than 100 peer-reviewed papers in academic journals and numerous presentations and invited speeches at national and international conferences in the area of medical and health informatics.
For more information, contact Dr. Kaihara at:
Email: kaihara-tky@umin.ac.jp
Ioannis A. Kakadiaris, PhD; Adjunct Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S., University of Athens, 1989; M.S., Northeastern University, 1991; Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1996. Dr. Kakadiaris joined the University of Houston in August 1997 after completing a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Director of the Division of Bio-Imaging and Bio-Computation at the UH Institute for Digital Informatics and Analysis. Dr. Kakadiaris is also the founder and Co-Director of UH’s Visual Computing Laboratory, an affiliate of the Texas Learning and Computation Center (TLC2). His research interests include computer vision, biomedical image analysis, modeling and simulation, biocomputing, pattern recognition, and multimodal human-computer interaction. Dr. Kakadiaris is the recipient of the year 2000 NSF Early Career Development Award, UH Computer Science Research Excellence Award, UH Enron Teaching Excellence Award, James Muller VP Young Investigator Prize, and the Schlumberger Technical Foundation Award.
For more information, contact Dr. Kakadiaris at:
Email: ioannisk@uh.edu
Sadahiko Kano, PhD: Adjunct Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. M.Sc., University of Tokyo, 1967, University of Essex, 1974; Ph.D., University of Tokyo, 1979. Dr. Kano first majored in International Relations at the University of Tokyo, and then graduated from the Department of Electrical Engineering in 1967. He immediately joined NTT. He was engaged in a number of network related projects at its Laboratories and became Director, Network Technology Laboratories in 1987. After serving as Director, Network Strategic Planning at NTT headquarters and Deputy Managing Director of R&D, he left NTT in 1999 and became Visiting Professor, at the University of Edinburgh. Since 2001, he assumed the current position of Professor, Graduate School of Global Information and Telecommunication Studies at Waseda University. He served as Chairman of a Study Group at International Telecommunication Union headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and also as President of Telecommunication Information Networking Architecture Consortium, composed of some 50 telecom and information companies of developed countries. He is now Deputy Director of the Wearable Information Networking Consortium and heading its Ubiquitous Health and Welfare Information System Group.
For more information, contact Dr. Kano at:
Nobutaka Kikuchi, MD, PhD; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. M.D., Yamagata University, 2000, Ph.D., Tohuko University, 2007, M.S., School of Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, 2007. Dr. Kikuchi is a board certified anesthesiologist and a fellow of the palliative care service. She was a director of research and development and chief medical information officer at the regional palliative care service in Natori, Japan.
For more information, contact Dr. Kikuchi at:
Email: Nobutaka.Kikuchi@uth.tmc.edu
Terri M. King, Ph.D.; Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, and Assistant Professor, Internal Medicine, Medical School; Associate Member, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, UTHSC-H and Assistant Professor, Dept. of Epidemiology, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center. B.S., The University of Texas at Austin, 1988; M.S., Georgetown University, 1989; and Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University, 1993. Dr. King’s dissertation focused on identifying the statistical properties of applying frailty survival models to the investigation of length of life in the Old Order Amish. Dr. King continued her professional training with a post-doctoral fellowship under the guidance of Dr. Chris Amos at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. During her post-doctoral fellowship she continued research on the statistical properties of model for the analysis of clustered survival data as well as conducting research on the use of phenotypes derived by principal components models in linkage analysis. She initiated a family study examining the genetics of a cellular biomarker, for which she received funding under the R-03 program. She continued at UTMDACC as an Assistant Professor and in 1997, she was awarded a K-07 award from the National Cancer Institute. As part of that award, she completed coursework in theoretical statistics at Rice University. In the final two years of her K-07, she held a joint appointment between UTMDACC and Genometrix, Inc. located in The Woodlands, TX. During this appointment, she was responsible for the development of statistical protocols for the analysis of microarray data as well as manufacturing quality control metrics. In addition, she developed clinical research databases, which were fully integrated with genetic and genomics data generated by microarrays. The position at Genometrix, Inc was not an academic position and this is reflected in her publication and grant record. In 2001, she chose to re-enter the academic field and joined the faculty of The University of Texas Houston Medical School as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Medical Genetics. This appointment has permitted her to transition her career focus from genetic epidemiology to statistical genetics. Her research interests are in the development of multivariate analytic techniques integrating phenotypic, genetic and genomic information. Since re-entering academia, Dr. King has established strong collaborations through the University and this is reflected in her publication and grant submission record over the last 18 months.
For more information, contact Dr. King at:
Email: Terri.M.King@uth.tmc.edu
Angel Lee, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences and Associate Professor, Institute of Molecular Medicine, UTHSC-H. Dr. Lee is a training member of the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston. B.A., Wesley College, 1975; M.D., Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology, 1984; and Ph.D., Harvard University, 1984. Dr. Lee is Board Certified Diplomat, American Board of Internal Medicine. The Laboratory of Angel Lee, M.D., Ph.D., focuses on understanding how signaling pathways activated by receptor tyrosine kinases regulate cell growth, survival and differentiation. There are two areas of interest. The first is in hematopoietic systems (myeloid progenitors and bone marrow-derived macrophages) and is directed at the signaling pathways downstream of the Colony Stimulating Factor-1 Receptor (CSF-1R). We are specially interested in basic mechanisms that could provide a basis for therapeutic intervention in cancers involving receptor tyrosine kinases. As the CSF-1R is a key receptor for macrophages, we are also very interested in how CSF-1R mediated pathways in myeloid cells contribute to diseases with a chronic inflammatory component such as cancer (tumor associated macrophages). The second area of interest is the role of signaling molecules and scaffolding proteins in neurogenesis, using murine embryonic stem cells and primary neural stem cells as models. In this project, we are interested in determining what governs neural stem cell proliferation and fate specification, in the hopes that our findings will provide information useful in areas of brain injury and repair. Given the complexity of the systems we study, my lab will be adopting a systems biology approach. The aim is to integrate experimental findings from genomics and proteomics with computational analysis and consider the participating molecules as part of a network. This approach should provide novel insights into cancer and those insights may lead to new drug developments and better understanding and design of complicated drug regimens.
For more information, contact Dr. Lee at:
Email: Angel.W.Lee@uth.tmc.edu
Helen Li, MD; Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, Associate Professor, Dept. of Ophthalmology, Director, Vitreoretinal Diseases and Surgery, Dept. of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. B.S., University of Pittsburgh, 1977; M.D., UTHSC-H, 1986. Dr. Li’s research interests include information technology for delivering eye care. She has published on digital imagery standards for clinical research and telemedicine and co-edited “Telehealth Practice Recommendations for Diabetic Retinopathy,” published by the American Telemedicine Association’s Telemedicine and eHealth journal. Dr Li was past chair of the American Telemedicine Association’s Ocular Telehealth Special Interest Group. Her research support included grants from National Institutes of Health, foundation and industries. Dr. Li is a four-time recipient of Faculty of the Year Awards from the UTMB ophthalmology department. She teaches medical students, graduate students and supervises practicums and theses for UTHSC-H Health Information Sciences master and doctoral students.
For more information, contact Dr. Li at:
Email: hli@utmb.edu or hlimed@mac.com
Yin Liu, PhD; Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, and Assistant Professor, The University of Texas at Austin. Ph.D., Yale University, 2007. The research in our lab focus on the development of computational and statistical approaches to performing large-scale analysis of cellular networks, biological pathways, genomic sequences, and gene expression. Current studies in our lab primarily focus on the area of systems biology, which involves the development of computational methods to integrate information from diverse sources in order to reconstruct biological networks, such as protein interaction networks and signal transduction networks. From a statistical point of view, Our lab is interested in the field of Bayesian inference and its applications in Bioinformatics, and we have been working on the development of Bayesian approaches to inferring protein functional modules using high-throughput mass spectrometry data.
For more information, contact Dr. Liu at:
Email: Yin.Liu@uth.tmc.edu
Jianpeng Ma, Ph.D.; Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-. B.S., Fudan University, 1985; Ph.D., Boston University, 1996. Dr. Ma’s main research focus is on computational study of the energetics and dynamics of protein structures, particularly on the role of functionally important large conformational changes, such as those involved in signal transduction, enzyme catalysis and protein folding in vivo. For more information, contact Dr. Ma at: Email: jpma@bcm.tmc.edu Home page: http:// www.bioch.bcm.tmc.edu/MaLab Paul Macklin, PhD; Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.A., University of Nebraska, 1999, M.S., University of Minnesota, 2003, Ph.D., University of California, Irvine, 2007, Post Doctoral Studies, University of California, Irvine, 2007. Dr. Macklin’s research interests include computations modeling of tumor growth. Dr. Macklin is currently collaborating with Dr. Cristini on a new generation of tumor growth and angiogenesis models. For more information, contact Dr. Macklin at: Email: Paul.T.Macklin@uth.tmc.edu Roger Marion, PhD; Adjunct Professor, Health Information Sciences, and Professor and Assistant Dean for Research and Educational Technology, UTMB. B.A, M.S., California State University, 1966, 1968 and Ph.D., University of Kentucky, 1978. Rodger Marion was a California filmmaker who won a CINE Golden Eagle. In graduate school, he learned to program a computer, and trained as a school psychologist, but ended up in the US Air Force, in Texas, teaching reading to basic trainees. Later he got a Ph.D. in psychology and communications, did a lot of computer programming, and wanted to go into educational television. Again he ended up somewhere else. This time he trained interdisciplinary health care teams in rural Kentucky. He came to the University of Texas Medical Branch in 1981. Currently, he is professor of Humanities and Basic Sciences, and assistant dean for research and educational technology in the School of Allied Health Sciences. Rodger, and his colleagues, have developed multimedia, instructional software that is licensed at over 60 colleges and universities. They have received many grants to support their research in using computers in education and developing software. Their current work focuses on developing simulations of international, telemedicine clinical encounters. And finally, thanks to the wonders of technology that have linked computers and television, he gets to paint again with light and shadow through a camera’s lens. For more information, contact Dr. Marion at: Email: rmarion@utmb.edu Home page: http://www.sahs.utmb.edu/vision/Bios/rodger_marion_ph.htm
Patrick J. McGinnis, MD, MS; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S., Xavier University; M.D., University of Kentucky, 1988; M.S., Wright State University, 1992; M.S., University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 2001. Patrick J. McGinnis, MD is a Physician Executive with Cerner Corporation -- the leading firm in the healthcare information technology industry. Cerner Physician Executives bring expertise to the challenging intersection of clinical, technical, and managerial domains of modern healthcare organizations. Prior to joining Cerner, Dr. McGinnis was a NASA Flight Surgeon at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. There, he provided primary care to NASA astronauts, their families, and medical support for several space missions. He has served as a Flight Surgeon with the Air National Guard and the USAF Reserve; he has completed the USAF Air War College, and currently holds the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the USAF Reserve. Dr. McGinnis is a graduate of Xavier University and the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. He trained in Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch and in Aerospace Medicine at Wright State University. His academic credentials also include an MS in Health Informatics from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and an MBA from the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business. In addition to academic, public sector, and corporate experience, Dr. McGinnis served as a Congressional Fellow to Montana Senator Conrad Burns in 2002. He conducted legislative research and assisted with policy formulation, thereby gaining valuable insights to the political process and leadership in the Federal Government.
For more information, contact Dr. McGinnis at:
Email: pat.mcginnis@cerner.com
Dianna M. Milewicz, M.D., Ph.D.; Adjunct Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, Professor and Vice Chair, Internal Medicine, Medical School, UTHSC-H. B.A., Rice University, 1978; M.D., Ph.D., U.T. Southwestern Medical School, 1984. For more information, contact Dr. Milewicz at: Email: Dianna.M.Milewicz@uth.tmc.edu Home page: http://www.uth.tmc.edu/schools/shis Aleksander Milosavljeic, PhD, Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. PhD, University of California at Santa Cruz, 1990, MS, Santa Clara University, 1986. The Bioinformatics Research Laboratory (BRL), directed by Dr. Milosavljevic, develops new experimental and computational methods for discovery through genomics, epigenomics and informatics. BRL aims to enable new discovery methodologies employing massively parallel sequencing and other high-throughput genomic technologies. A recent research initiative is the construction of the Epigenome Atlas as part of the NIH Epigenomics Roadmap Initiative. The Genboree Discovery System is the largest software system developed at BRL. Genboree is a turnkey software system for genomic research. The Epigenomics Data Analysis and Coordination Center and a number of collaborative epigenomic projects use Genboree as the core informatic infrastructure. Our Positional Hashing method, implemented in the Pash program, enables extremely fast and accurate high-volume sequence comparison and pattern discovery by employing low-level parallelism. By being able to accurately analyze billions of sequence fragments from ChIP-seq, bisulfite-seq and other *-seq assays performed in the course of the NIH Epigenomics Roadmap Initiative project, we anticipate to be able to gain insights into the interplay between human genetic and epigenetic variation. BRL is also developing comprehensive, rapid, and economical methods for detecting and interpreting recurrent chromosomal aberrations in cancer using massively parallel sequencing technologies.
For more information, contact Dr. Milosavljeic at:
Email: amilosav@bcm.tmc.edu
Parsa Mirhaji, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. PhD, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 2009, MD, 2001. Dr. Mirhaji is an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies in the University of Texas, School of Health Information Sciences at Houston, and the director of the Center for Biosecurity and Public Health Informatics Research, where he has developed clinical text understanding algorithms, case detection methodologies, and a reference architecture for situational awareness for public health preparedness (SARA) using semantic technologies and SOA. Dr. Mirhaji has been an acting committee member on the Texas Hospital Preparedness Program at the Texas Department of Health and Human Services and the Texas Institute for Health Policy Research, a selected member of Technology Subcommittee - Health Information Technology Advisory Commission, Texas Department of Health and Human Services, the chair of the “International Defense and Homeland Security Conference 2003-2008”, and the “International Conference on Rule Markup Languages for the Semantic Web 2007-2008” . Dr. Mirhaji and his fellow researchers were awarded “The Best Practice in Public Health Award-2002” by the Department of Health and Human Services for establishing the Defense of Houston web-portal for community awareness and public readiness in the aftermath of September 11 attacks. Dr. Mirhaji’s research involves application of semantic technologies in information integration, biomedical vocabularies and taxonomies, natural language understanding, automation and context awareness, translational bioinformatics, and public health informatics.
Kevin Montgomery, PhD; Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S., University of Delaware, 1988, M.S., Ph.D., University of California, Santa Cruz, 1994, 1996.
Dr. Montgomery’s research areas include advanced visualization, telemedicine, and simulation to directly impact medical care as well as wireless and advanced visualization technologies for public health, telemedicine, and disaster management.
Email: Kevin.Montgomery@uth.tmc.edu
Robert E. Murphy, MD; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences. Dr. Murphy is developing enterprise-wide strategies for adoption of electronic medical records and clinical information technologies. He leads specific efforts on computerized physician order entry, online physician documentation, and use of mobile devices.
For more information, contact Dr. Murphy at:
Email: Robert_murphy@mhhs.org
Koichi Nobutomo, MD, PhD: Adjunct Professor, Health Information Sciences, and Professor, Kyushu University Graduate School Division of Medical Sciences Management and Policy, M.D., Ph.D., Kyushu University, 1971, 1978. M.S. Harvard University, 1980. For more information, contact Dr. Nobutomo at: Email: nobutomo@hsmp.med.kyushu-u.ac.jp Sachiko Ohta, MD, PhD; Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H; M.D., Sapporo Medical University, 1990, Ph.D., Okayama University Medical School, 1997, M.S. University of Texas Houston, 2007.
For more information, contact Dr. Ohta at:
Email: o-chiko@mub.biglobe.ne.jp
Paula O’Neill, Ed.D.; Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, Associate Dean, for Educational Research and Professional Development, Professor Dental Public Health & Dental Hygiene, The University of Texas, Dental Branch of Houston; B.A., University of Sioux Falls, M.Ed., Ed.D., University of Texas, 1985, 1989. Dr O’Neill is an Associate Dean for Educational Research and Professional Development at the University of Texas Dental Branch and is also a professor of Dental Public Health and dental Hygiene. Dr. O’Neill received a certificate in Biomedical Communication/Instructional Design from the School of Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H.
For more information, contact Dr. O’Neill at:
Email: Paula.N.Oneill@uth.tmc.edu
Vimla L. Patel, PhD, DSc; Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC_H, ., PhD, Mcgill University, 1981, M.A., Mcgill University, 1980, BSc, Otago University, 1976. Dr. Patel is a world-renowned researcher in applied cognitive science and biomedical informatics. Patel’s early vision of this research is now fully on the national agenda and best reflected by the National Research Council’s report on health information technology that identified cognitive support for clinicians and patients as one of the most important factors for its success. Throughout the course of her career, Patel has covered many areas of cognitive informatics and decision-making. She initiated the use of cognitive science methods and theories in research pertaining to medical problem solving. She worked extensively in the area of medical error reduction in emergency care and critical environments, and in the area of lay health cognition in diverse sociocultural contexts. Patel also studied risk-taking behavior and sexual decision- making as it relates to HIV in youth and adolescents. Her expertise brought her to work for many national and even global agencies, such as the World Bank, the World Health Organization (WHO), Unicef, and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Patel is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (elected by the Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences) and The New York Academy of Medicine. In 1999, she received the Swedish “Woman of Science” award. Patel is an associate editor of the Journal of Biomedical Informatics, has authored more than 250 publications, and has been on the editorial board of several other health science and informatics journals.
For more information, contact Dr. Patel at:
Email: Vimla.L.Patel@uth.tmc.edu
John Riggs, MD, MS; Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Medical School, UTHSC-H. B.A. Trinity University, 1982, M.D., M.S., UTHSC-H, 1986, 2001.
For more information, contact Dr. Riggs at:
Email: John.W.Riggs@uth.tmc.edu
Doris L. Ross, Ph.D., Dean Emeritus, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, B.S., Texas Woman’s University, 1947; MT (ASCP), Hermann Hospital, 1948; M.S., Baylor College of Medicine, 1958; Ph.D., The University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, 1967. Dr. Ross is a Biochemist. She is one the first graduates of the UTHSC-H Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She worked at Hermann Hospital managing the laboratories. In 1973, she came to the School of Allied Health Sciences as a faculty member in the Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences. She became Dean Pro Tem in September 1992 as the School was redefining itself. She has been instrumental in the development of the new School of Health Information Sciences. The School received approval to offer a masters degree in Health Informatics in July of 1999. In October of 2000, the School under her leadership received approval to offer a doctoral degree in Health Informatics. In March 2001, the official name of the school was changed to the School of Health Information Sciences and she was officially named Dean.
For more information, contact Dr. Ross at:
Email: Doris.L.Ross@uth.tmc.edu
Pamela D. Salyer, Ph.D., R.N.; BC Adjunct Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S., M.S., Ph.D., Texas Women’s University. 1976, 1982, 1994. Pamela Salyer, PhD, RN, is responsible for assuring that I.T. conforms to all relevant legal and regulatory requirements, and monitoring the activities of federal, state, regulatory, standards, and market activities to anticipate changes that might impact strategic plans for I.T. Prior to this role, she served as the Clinical Systems Consultant in I.T. from 1989 to 2003, where she represented clinical interests in the selection, development, and implementation of a wide variety of computer applications that impact clinicians at The Methodist Hospital System. She has published numerous articles and made extensive presentations locally and nationally on nursing informatics and clinical information systems. She has been recognized in Who’s Who in American Nursing among some of her honors. In addition, she was one of the first 100 nurses to become board certified in Nursing Informatics by the American Nurses Credentialing Center.
For more information, contact Dr. Salyer at:
Email: psalyer@tmhs.org or Pamela.D.Salyer@uth.tmc.edu Home page: www.uth.tmc.edu/schools/ shis
Michael Shabot, MD; Adjunct Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S., University of Texas, 1966, M.D., University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, 1970. M. Michael Shabot, M.D. is System Chief Medical Officer for the Memorial Hermann Healthcare System of Houston, Texas.. He has served as Memorial Hermann’s Chief Quality Officer. Prior to joining Memorial Hermann, he served as Medical Director of Enterprise Information Services, Director of Surgical Intensive Care and Associate Director of Surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He is a recent past Chief of Staff at Cedars-Sinai. He is Board certified in General Surgery and Surgery Critical Care and specializes in general surgery, trauma surgery and critical care. Dr. Shabot is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the American College of Critical Care Medicine and the American College of Medical Informatics. During his surgical residency, Dr. Shabot implemented a first generation clinical information system for the real time management of critically ill patients. Since then he has overseen the development of numerous innovations in patient care including ambulatory systems. He has published over 325 papers, chapters, books and abstracts on critical care, trauma, physiologic monitoring and the use of computerized information systems for decision support, quality management and clinical research. A specialist in medical computer technology, Dr. Shabot conducts research on how systems can improve patient care, quality and safety. With Cedars-Sinai Medical Center he obtained a patent on a wireless clinical alerting system in 1999.
For more information, Contact Dr. Shabot at:
Email: Michael.Shabot@memorialhermann.org
Ross Shegog, PhD; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, Assistant Professor, School of Public Health, UTHSC-H; B.Sc., University of Sidney, 1983, M.P.H., Ph.D., University of Texas, 1992, 1997. Dr. Shegog is an Assistant Professor of Behavioral Sciences and Health Promotion, at the School of Public Health UTHSC-H, Center for Health Promotion and Prevention Research. His current research interests include application of instructional technology in health promotion and disease prevention. His recent projects have focused on using computer based education and decision-support programs to enhance the management of pediatric asthma by children, families, and community physicians.
For more information, contact Dr. Shegog at:
Email: Ross.Shegog@uth.tmc.edu
Edward Shortliffe, MD, PhD; Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S., Harvard College; 1970, M.D., Ph.D., Stanford University.1975
Dr. Shortliffe is President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Medical Informatics Association, based in Bethesda, MD. He is also Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Arizona State University and Professor of Basic Medical Sciences and Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Until May 2008 he served as the founding dean of the Phoenix campus of the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine. Previously he was the Rolf A. Scholdager Professor and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City (2000-2007) and Professor of Medicine and of Computer Science at Stanford University (1979- 2000). In November 2009, he will assume a new academic appointment as Professor of Biomedical Informatics at the School of Health Information Sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, Texas. His research interests include the broad range of issues related to integrated decision-support systems, their effective implementation, and the role of the Internet in health care.
For more information, contact Dr. Shortliffe at:
Email: Edward.Shortliffe@uth.tmc.edu
Jack W. Smith, M.D., Ph.D.; Professor and Dean, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S., Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 1973; M.D., West Virginia University Medical School, 1977; M.S., Computer and Information Science, 1980; Ph.D., Computer and Information Science, 1986, Ohio State University, Post-Doctoral Fellow of the National Library of Medicine, Biomedical Computing, 1985, Ohio State University. Dr. Jack W. Smith was recruited from Ohio State University to become the first Chairman of the Department of Health Informatics at U.T.H.S.C.-H. He was instrumental in recruiting many of our original faculty from O.S.U. In January 2003, he became the Interim Dean for the School of Health Information Sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. In addition, he is Deputy Director of Medical Informatics and Healthcare Systems at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) - Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas. Medical Informatics and Healthcare Systems is concerned with the issues surrounding the collection, storage, retrieval, analysis, and transmission of medical information related to spaceflight at NASA JSC. This includes investigations in a number of areas such as medical devices for collecting information both on the ground and on orbit, electronic patient records for quality and timely astronaut care, security measures to enable remote access to medical information, warehouses of medical data to enable further analyses used to determine risk factors and develop countermeasures, and technologies to support international partner collaboration on medical issues. His research interests are artificial intelligence, modeling problem solving in healthcare, implementation of decision support and tutoring systems, modeling complex human problem-solving and the application of cognitive science to understanding human-computer interaction. Dr. Smith is a board certified in Pathology and has a doctorate in Computer Science in the area of Artificial Intelligence. Dr. Smith has funded research in the modeling of problem solving in healthcare and its application to the implementation of decision- support and intelligent tutoring systems. His current research focuses on modeling clinician understanding and the implementation of systems to supporting tutoring and the decision making processes of healthcare specialists, flight surgeons and biomedical engineers. His research interests includes the modeling of complex human problem-solving in healthcare, the representations of knowledge for automating these processes and the application of cognitive science to the understanding of human-computer interaction.
For more information, contact Dr. Smith at:
Email: Jack.W.Smith@uth.tmc.edu
Elizabeth Souther, RN, PhD; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S., The University of Texas at Austin, 1993; B.S.N., M.S., UTHSC-H, 1975, 2000; M.S.N., Ph.D., Texas Women’s University, 1982, 1992. Dr. Souther has taught undergraduate and graduate nursing courses at several universities. She has been an innovator to move education programs into the electronic era. She has worked as a consultant in the Health Informatics field. Currently, Dr. Souther is an implementation specialist at Texas Children’s Hospital with the use of an electronic medical record.
For more information, contact Dr. Souther at:
Email: elsouthe@texaschildrenshospital.org
David J. States, MD, PhD; Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-Hand Professor of Molecular Medicine, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine. B.A., M.D., Ph.D., Harvard University, 1975, 1983.
The States Group develops multidisciplinary computational applications for biomedicine. We have focused on high throughput experimental technologies and ways to enhance knowledge acquisition using novel algorithms and strategies for data acquisition. Early work involved the development of pure absorption phase methods for multi-dimensional NMR spectroscopy, enhanced lane tracking and base calling algorithms for genome sequencing and more recently improved algorithms for the analysis of proteomics and mass spectrometry.
The States Group is also engaged in molecular biology data integration. Projects have included physical map assembly, genome annotation, the analysis of gene expression profiles, databases for molecular interactions and automated natural language processing.
Email: David.J.States@uth.tmc.edu
James P. Turley, RN, PhD; Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.A., St. Francis College, 1970; B.S., Widener University, 1973; M.A., New School for Social Research, 1976; M.S.N., Case Western Reserve University, 1977; Ph.D., University of Oregon, 1981; Post-Doctoral Fellow of the National Library of Medicine, Health Informatics, 1993. Dr. Turley is the founding faculty member of the School of Health Information Sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (formerly the School of Allied Health Science). He was responsible for the development of the curriculum for the Master of Science and Doctor of Science Programs. He has worked nationally and internationally in the areas of knowledge modeling and taxonomy development. He was project director for the development of the Community Nurse Minimum Data Set-Australia, which has since been incorporated into the Australian National Minimum Data Set. Since then, his research and education have focused on the interface between discipline specific and an integrated Health Focus for Informatics and Health Data Utilization. More recently this work has included the need to develop a light weight electronic health record for the street homeless. This project has begun a reconceptualization of the needs and structures of health data for electronic health records and patient specific health records.
For more information, contact Dr. Turley at:
Email: James.P.Turley@uth.tmc.edu
Ignacio H. Valdes, MD, MS, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-. B.S., Texas A&M University, 1986; M.S., University of Houston, 1990; and M.D., University of Texas Southwestern, 1998. Dr. Valdes has developed software in the treatment of patients and healthcare professionals to reduce stress in the workplace. He is the editor of several medical computing journals. He has written numerous articles, made presentations and designs and host several medical society web pages.
For more information, contact Dr. Valdes at:
Email: ivaldes@hal-pc.org
Robert W. Vogler, DSN, Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H B.S.N., Seattle University, 1966; M.Ed., North Texas State University, 1972; M.S.N., Medical College of Georgia, 1976; D.S.N., University of Alabama, 1984; F.N.P., Texas Women’s University, 1995; Post Doctoral Fellowship, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 1999. Dr. Vogler has a nursing background and has taught, held administrative positions and served as a school of nursing chief information officer and executive director of an information and educational technology center that provided information services and educational support. He has served on university level information, technology and educational committees, been involved at the university level for HIPPA, compliance, security, course management software and distance technology issues. He has participated in oversight of information technology, served on distance education committees and in university building programs. His recent research interests include blood pressure reactivity and un-witnessed patient falls. He has published journal articles, book chapters and has numerous presentations. His dissertation research focused on quality of care for terminally ill hospitalized patients.
For more information, contact Dr. Vogler at:
Email: Robert.W.Vogler@uth.tmc.edu
Muhammad F. Walji, PhD, Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences and Assistant Professor of Diagnostic Sciences, Dental Branch. B.S., The University of Texas at Dallas, M.S., Ph.D., UTHSC-H. Dr. Walji has been recruited by the UT Dental Branch to bridge the gap between endodontics and electronics, prosthodontics and programs, and all things dental with all things digital. Dr. Walji is the Dental Branch’s new informatician. . Muhammad F Walji PhD is an assistant professor in the Department of Diagnostic Sciences at the University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston and an adjunct assistant professor at UTH-SHIS. Dr Walji’s research has focused on assessing usability of HIT systems, and improving decisions of patient and providers through the use of the electronic health record and point of care decision support. Dr Walji currently serves as Principal Investigator of a NLM funded grant to develop an Inter-university Oral Health Data Repository that will allow end users to directly explore and extract information to support their specific research or decision making needs. He is also the current chair of the ADEA Section on Dental Informatics and serves on the Board of Directors for the Consortium of Oral Health Related Informatics (COHRI).
For more information contact Dr. Walji at:
Email: Muhammad.F.Walji@uth.tmc.edu
Hongbin Wang, PhD, Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S., Peking University, 1991; M.A., M.S., Ph.D., The Ohio State University, 1995, 1998, 1998. Dr. Wang has a doctorate in Psychology (Cognitive) and masters degree in Computer Science. His research is in medical decision-making, human & machine learning, computational modeling, and human-computer interaction. Dr. Wang has several articles and book chapters. He has made several national and international presentations.
For more information, contact Dr. Wang at
Email: Hongbin.Wang@uth.tmc.edu
William A. Weems, PhD; Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, and Associate Professor, Medical School, Director, Office of Academic Computing, UTHSC-H. B.S., M.S., Baylor University, 1967, 1970; Ph.D., University of Illinois, 1973. Dr. Weems is director of the Office of Academic Computing (OAC), The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and Associate Professor of Integrative Biology at the Medical School. He has conducted extensive research in the areas of neurophysiology of sympathetic ganglia, control of intestinal motility and fluid propulsion. Recent research has focused on informatics as a tool for the study of modeling and management of complex systems. Through his work in OAC, Dr. Weems has been responsible for establishing the electronic and computing infrastructure required to support academic activities at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Dr. Weems has created the staff and resource support for the development of Web-based courseware, which he has pioneered with his own course in physiology. Dr. Weems has been integral to the establishment of an electronic record system at Hermann Hospital, linking Hermann with The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston-Medical School.
For more information, contact Dr. Weems at:
Email: William.A.Weems@uth.tmc.edu
Olivier Wenker, MD; Adjunct Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H, Professor, Anesthesiology, Scientific Director of Technology Discovery, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. M.D., University of Zuerich, 1983.
Dr. Wenker has developed Wenker Technologies and Internet Scientific Publications to provide educational technologies and peer-reviewed electronic publications on the web. WenTek LLC (Wenker Technologies) has been incorporated in early 1998. The goal of the company is to create and produce multimedia-based educational products. The main focus is to combine modern electronic technology with medicine. Professional medical personnel is involved in the production of educational material such as CD-ROM’s, Internet web pages, Intranet pages streaming, slide shows, streaming video, interactive programming, and CME content production. Internet Scientific Publications LLC is one of the oldest and largest International medical publishing houses on the web. All our articles, reviews, multimedia presentations and case reports are peer-reviewed. It is our goal to remain a leading source for high quality medical information on the Internet.
For more information, contact Dr. Wenker at:
Email: wenker@ispub.com
Irmgard Willcockson, PhD; Assistant Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S., University of California, 1987, Ph.D., Baylor College of Medicine, 1997. Her main research interest is in using technology to teach. A particular interest is the use of games to teach health science concepts to children and youth. . She teaches the popular Emerging Technology course that address current developments in teaching, learning, and research. Her other role at the school is as Director of the Certificate program, recruiting and advising students both in the certificate and in their transition to the MS or PhD Program. In this role she examines several facets of informatics education, for example predicting student success in the school’s degree programs and retention.
For more information, contact Dr. Willcockson at:
Email: irmgard.willcockson@uth.tmc.edu
Stephen Wong, PhD; Adjunct Professor, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.E.E. University of Western Australia, 1983, M.Sc., Ph.D., Lehigh University, 1989, 1991. Dr. Wong has various faculty positions in the electrical engineering and informatics fields. His current research encompasses brain modeling techniques, and his past research deals with computing in the medical field, especially information storage and medical imaging. Dr. Wong serves as an associate editor for various books and has had numerous publications. For more information, contact Dr. Wong at: Email: stwong@tmhs.org Kevin C. Wooten, PhD; Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Information Sciences Yi. B.A., M.A., University of Houston Clear Lake, 1976, 1978; and Ph.D., Tulane University, 1991. Dr. Wooten’s research interests include psychological and cognitive reactions to job loss, quantitative methods for training need assessment. Change readiness and resistance, organizational fairness and justice, personality predispositions relative to career change and culture fit, measurement issues in vocational assessment, methodologies for evaluating organizational development interventions, and organizational and professional ethics.
For more information, contact Dr. Wooten at:
Email wooten@uhcl.edu
Jiajie Zhang, PhD; Professor and Associate Dean for Research, Health Information Sciences, UTHSC-H. B.S., University of Science & Technology of China, 1983; M.S., Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 1991, 1992. Dr. Zhang is a cognitive scientist with interdisciplinary training in cognitive psychology, computer science, and neurosciences. He has done research in biomedical informatics, cognitive science, human-centered computing, user interface design, information visualization and external representation, medical error, decision-making, and computational cognitive modeling. He has authored numerous articles; book chapters, and peer-reviewed proceedings papers. He has been the principal investigator or co-investigator on more than ten grants from NASA, Office of Naval Research, Army, NIH, James S. McDonnell Foundation, and other funding agencies. He has given numerous conference presentations and invited presentations at other institutions, and organized and participated in many symposia and panels at international and national conferences. He has also served on several NIH review panels. Dr. Zhang was a recipient of John P. McGovern Outstanding Teacher Award in 2002.
For more information, contact Dr. Zhang at:
Email: Jiajie.Zhang@uth.tmc.edu