Alejandro Araya

Manager, Research and Projects

Alejandro Araya joined the Biomedical Informatics Group in 2014. He received his BS in Microbiology from The University of Houston Downtown. In addition to his life sciences background, he has over eight years of software development experience. He has worked on cross institution research projects involving clinical data analysis, natural language processing, and visualization.

Contact Alejandro by email at Alejandro.Araya@uth.tmc.edu or by telephone at 713-500-3574.

Fatima Ashraf

Assistant Project Manager

Fatima Ashraf joined the Biomedical Informatics Group in 2020 after completing a Master's degree in Biomedical Informatics from SBMI. She has a prior Master's degree in Computer Science from University of Calgary, Canada.

Contact Fatima by email at Fatima.Ashraf@uth.tmc.edu or by telephone at 713-486-0119.

Joseph Applegate

Programmer Analyst

Joseph Applegate received a BS in Management Information Systems from Oklahoma State University, specializing in database analysis and network security. In addition to exploring how information systems can improve healthcare, he has interests in natural language processing, artificial intelligence (especially computer vision), mobile apps and game development. He currently works on analyzing and staging the Clinical Data Warehouse, and supporting applications for the research and medical community.

Contact Joseph by email at Reuben.J.Applegate@uth.tmc.edu or by telephone at 713-500-3939.

Brian Shukwit

Programmer Analyst

Brian Shukwit joined the Biomedical Informatics Group in 2021. He has a BS in Information Systems from Liberty University and has 6 years experience in data management and writing SQL. His interests include data engineering and data technologies. He is also a published novelist.

Contact Brian by email at Brian.Shukwit@uth.tmc.edu.

Matthew Decaro

Programmer Analyst

Matthew Decaro joined the Biomedical Informatics group in 2022. He received a MS in Physics from Rice University with 5 years of experience in Software Development and Data Analysis. In addition to providing services on the BIG-Arc team, Matthew also participates in medical education research within Dr. Bernstam's group, and is interested in how Statistics and Data Science can improve healthcare quality and outcomes.

Contact Matthew by email at Matthew.Decaro@uth.tmc.edu.

Deepa Chaudhari

Graduate Research Assistant

Deepa Chaudhari joined the Biomedical Informatics Group in 2019 as a Programmer Analyst at the School of Biomedical informatics. With 5 years of experience in software development, she has expertise in Python, Python packages, SQL, MS SQL, MySQL, Relational Database Management Systems, and has knowledge of Data Visualization tools. Deepa is part of Dr. Bernstam’s group that provides a variety of services to clinical/translational investigators at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTH) and other institutions including enhanced subject recruiting, PHI data management, and customized support for research and medical community. In addition to developing new applications, she is actively involved in a data warehouse expansion project funded by a CTSA grant.

Deepa is currently working in our team as a Graduate Research Assistant while she pursues a Masters degree in Biomedical Informatics from SBMI.

Contact Deepa by email at Deepa.D.Chaudhari@uth.tmc.edu or by telephone at 713-500-9672.