Women's History Month: Tao helps solve biomedical issues

Editor’s Note: In celebration of Women’s History Month (March 1-March 31), UTHealth Houston is featuring outstanding members of its community.

Cui Tao, PhD, is making history by developing informatics technologies to solve a variety of biomedical problems in ways that can transform how we approach disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.

“As a computer scientist, I have always been interested in developing models and algorithms that can be applied in real-world applications,” said Tao, the Dr. Doris L. Ross Professor and director of the Center for Biomedical Semantics and Data Intelligence at UTHealth Houston School of Biomedical Informatics. 

“Biomedicine is an exciting field that presents many opportunities to apply artificial intelligence technologies. I am passionate about informatics tools that can be applied to real-world biomedical problems and, by working at the intersection of computer science and biomedicine, I am able to apply my expertise in a way that can make a meaningful impact on health care outcomes.”

For the last 15 years, Tao has dedicated herself to helping researchers and clinicians make sense of complex biological and medical data, as well as develop algorithms and models that can be used to make predictions and generate insights that could not be obtained through traditional methods.

Tao is also passionate about passing that knowledge on to others.

“As a professor and mentor, I am committed to sharing my knowledge and expertise with the next generation of informaticians. I firmly believe that by educating and inspiring young people, we can help to build a stronger and more diverse community of researchers who are dedicated to advancing the field of biomedical informatics.”