On April 20, it was announced that D. Bradley “Brad” McWilliams, a longtime supporter of UTHealth Houston, made a transformative commitment to the School of Biomedical Informatics to bolster our mission of enhancing human health through data science.

In gratitude for his visionary investment, the school will now be named D. Bradley McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics. Most often the school will be identified as McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics at UTHealth Houston.

Click here to learn more about Mr. McWilliams and the name change.

Our school will honor over 60 PhD, DHI, and MS graduates during the annual Commencement Ceremony at 4:00 PM on May 9. We invite the entire McWilliams School Community to attend this momentous event. Visit https://sbmi.uth.edu/graduation/ for more information.

Unlike our most recent ceremonies, this event will only feature McWilliams graduates and is not a joint ceremony. The ceremony will take place at the Shepherd School of Music – Alice Pratt Brown Hall in the Stude Concert Hall at Rice University (6100 Main Street Houston, TX 77005). Alumnus John D’Amore, MS ’11, who serves as the President of More Informatics, Inc. will give the Commencement Address. After the ceremony concludes, the school will host a celebratory reception with complimentary light bites and beverages.

Members of the McWilliams Community recently achieved noteworthy accomplishments. We want to recognize and applaud these individuals.

Associate Professor Luca Giancardo, PhD (left) & PhD Student Ivan Coronado attended the International Symposium in Biomedical Imaging (ISBI 2023) in Cartagena, Colombia earlier this month. Their lab hosted a data challenge at the symposium and McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics also had three conference papers presented.



Professor Xiaobo Zhou, PhD was inducted into the 2023 Class of the AIMBE College of Fellows in late March. Please join us in congratulating him on this accomplishment.



A UTHealth Student team recently won 1st place at the National CLARION Case Competition held at the University of Minnesota. The team included (left to right) Mehmet Enes Inam (McWilliams MS Student), Devesh Malgave (SPH PhD Student), Xiao Li (SPH PhD Student), and Amanda Oliphant (McWilliams and McGovern Dual MD/MS Student). Mehmet also won top presenter honors for the whole competition.



PhD Student Rongbin Li recently earned a new NLM Training Program in Biomedical Informatics and Data Science fellowship appointment.

Our spring 2023 Poster Session will take place on campus on Monday, May 1 at 4:00 PM (CDT). While most students will participate on campus (1825 Pressler Street in the IMM Building), a small percentage will use a virtual platform for presenting. Join us as the students present their research.

Please contact the Office of Academic Affairs if you have questions about the event.

Our office recently received news that there is a new TMC Liaison Librarian assigned to our school. Her name is Kelsey Koym (Kelsey.Koym@library.tmc.edu, 713-799-7156).

If students or faculty want to meet with her, the best way is to use the consultation form: https://libguides.library.tmc.edu/SBMI/Librarian or this alternative form: https://tmc.libwizard.com/f/consultation.

We ask that you have patience with Kelsey during this busy transition period and allow 1-3 business days for response to all emails.

• The Houston Chronicle detailed the success of the UTHealth Houston #ManyFacesOneMission campaign and the naming of McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics in an exclusive article published recently.
• In late March, Professor James Langabeer, PhD spoke with KPRC Channel 2 and FOX 26 Houston about the FDA’s approval of Narcan to be sold over-the-counter for opioid overdoses.