Category: News

Two senior faculty leaders recently stepped into exciting new roles. We are continually grateful for their dedication to furthering both our mission and the science. Albert Lai – Assistant Dean for Biomedical Informatics Albert Lai, PhD, will now serve as the assistant dean for biomedical informatics while continuing in his current role as chief research information […]

We are pleased to announce the promotion of two senior administrative staff leaders within the Office of Health Information and Data Science (OHIDS), effective Jan. 1, 2025. We are confident that their expertise, dedication, and leadership will continue to enhance the vital work being done within OHIDS and beyond. Cynthia Marich – Chief-of-Staff Cynthia Marich […]

Congratulations to Dr. Daphne Lew, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, along with Dr. Alfred Kim, an Associate Professor in WashU Medicine’s Division of Rheumatology for being co-senior authors on an exciting publication in ACR Open Rheumatology on patient-reported social risk factor (SRF) screening among rheumatology outpatients. The researchers aimed to determine the feasibility of implementing routine […]

On March 1, 2025, Dr. Joanna Abraham became director of I2DB’s Center for Applied Health Informatics (CAHI). She brings a wealth of experience and a visionary approach to using informatics in clinical care and population health. An associate professor with WashU Medicine Anesthesiology dually appointed with I2DB, she holds a Doctorate in Information Sciences and […]

Congratulations to our December recognition graduates. Your hard work and perseverance have brought you to this moment. The Institute for Informatics, Data Science, and Biostatistics (I2DB) had 17 graduates from the Master of Science programs in Biomedical Informatics, Biostatistics, and Biostatistics and Data Science. We’re proud to celebrate you and your achievements! Relive Friday, Dec. […]

The Institute for Informatics, Data Science and Biostatistics (I2DB) spent the week in New Delhi, India, hosting a leadership workshop and alumni reception, as well as speaking at the THE Innovation and Impact Summit. The visit strengthened I2DB’s networking and partnerships in India.  Digital Health Leadership Resource Library and Workshop  The Digital Health Leadership Workshop […]

Jing Wang, PhD, professor of biostatistics, has been appointed the director of the Biostatistics Consulting Service at the Institute for Informatics, Data Science, and Biostatistics (I²DB). As director, Dr. Wang will lead the Biostatistics Consulting Service, which provides biostatistical consultation across a wide range of areas. These include the statistical design of experiments and clinical […]

For patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), an early stage of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), monitoring the risk of progressing to AD over time is crucial. Recent research published in JAMIA Open has introduced a state-of-the-art deep learning framework named HiMAL (Hierarchical Multi-task Auxiliary Learning) that addresses this need.  The study, led by Sayantan Kumar, PhD […]

Dementia affects individuals differently, causing a variety of symptoms that progress at varying rates, which makes uniform treatment challenging. Recent research published in PLOS One, led by PhD candidate Sayantan Kumar and Philip Payne, PhD, along with Inez Oh, PhD, Suzanne Schindler, MD, PhD, Nupur Ghoshal, MD, PhD,  and Zachary Abrams, PhD, utilized a novel […]

Washington University School of Medicine and BJC Health System have launched the joint Center for Health AI. The center aims to harness cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) to fundamentally change the way health care is provided. It will focus on making care more personalized and effective for patients, and more efficient and manageable for health care professionals.

We are delighted to announce that Linying Zhang, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, has been honored with the prestigious 2024 Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) Titan Award for Methodological Research. This award recognizes her exceptional contributions to advancing analytical methods in clinical characterization, population-level effect estimation, and patient-level prediction. Congratulations, Dr. Zhang!

On Thursday and Friday, Nov.7-8, the OHIDS leadership team and external advisory board met in San Francisco ahead of the AMIA annual symposium. The discussions and ideas these meetings generate are instrumental in shaping the future direction of OHIDS initiatives.

Lei Liu, PhD, professor of biostatistics and data science, has been appointed as the deputy director of faculty affairs at the Institute for Informatics, Data Science, and Biostatistics (I2DB). Congratulations, Dr. Liu!

Charles Goss, PhD, assistant professor of biostatistics, has been appointed as the director of the newly established Center for Biostatistics and Data Science (CBDS) at the Institute for Informatics, Data Science, and Biostatistics (I2DB). Congratulations, Dr. Goss!

Congratulations to principal investigator Joanna Abraham, PhD, and her team for their publication, “Improving Safety in Postoperative Handoff Communication with Telemedicine and Machine Learning,” in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Digital Healthcare Research Program 2023 Year in Review.

Charles Goss, PhD, and J. Philip Miller, both faculty members in the Institute for Informatics, Data Science and Biostatistics (I2DB), head the data management cores for the ReVAMPP flavivirus and alphavirus program and the ReVAMPP paramyxovirus, peribunyavirus and phlebovirus program, respectively.

Congratulations to biostatistics student Trevor Zimmerman for presenting his research at the prestigious 70th annual Radiation Research Society conference, held in Tucson, Arizona, from Sept. 15-18. His selection as a master’s student is particularly impressive given the event’s lineup of top scientists. Zimmerman’s abstract stood out among many submissions, earning him the rare opportunity to […]

In an opinion published recently in Annals of Internal Medicine, I2DB Director Dr. Philip Payne and co-authors outlined timely AI considerations for health systems, recommending robust structural foundations and clinician engagement, as well as strategic outcome measurement to improve care quality, mitigate AI-related risks, and address social equity. They emphasized that AI should be viewed […]

Celebrating the end of a fantastic internship! Our BIDS@I2DB interns concluded their 11-week program with an impressive poster session on Wednesday, July 31. The BIDS@I2DB program offers internships for undergraduate and graduate students to explore biomedical informatics. Under faculty mentors, interns engaged in cutting-edge research, training, and collaboration. They: Congratulations to our talented interns for […]

Recent research by first author Seunghwan (Nigel) Kim, MS, BIDS PhD student, and supporting authors Benjamin Warner, MS, Daphne Lew, PhD, MPH, Sunny Lou, MD, PhD, and Thomas Kannampallil, PhD, introduces “action entropy” as a measure to assess cognitive effort in electronic health record (EHR) tasks. By analyzing EHR audit logs, neural language models were used to […]

Congratulations to Linying Zhang, PhD, who received the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 2024 Edward H. Shortliffe Doctoral Dissertation Award Honorable Mention (second place) for her doctoral dissertation titled “Causal machine earning for reliable real-world evidence generation in healthcare.” She will give a semi-plenary talk on her dissertation work at the 2024 AMIA Annual Symposium on Monday, Nov. […]

Congratulations to coauthor Dr. Ling Chen and her team for their publication in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, where they found that even minor cognitive changes can influence older adults’ decision to cease driving. Their research highlights the importance of routine cognitive testing to detect early and subtle decline, enabling older […]

Congratulations to WashU’s Sunny Lou, MD, PhD, and co-authors Daphne Lew, PhD, PMH, Laura Baratta, BS, Elise Eiden, MS, and Thomas Kannampallil, PhD, in collaboration with Christine Sinsky, MD, from the American Medical Association, on their recent publication in JAMA Network Open. The study explores the association between secure messaging and telephone use in clinician-to-clinician communication, highlighting the […]

Earlier this month, Washington University School of Medicine and BJC HealthCare became the newest members of the Health AI Partnership (HAIP), a multi-stakeholder collaborative of more than 20 organizations and growing that seeks to create safe spaces for peer learning and collaboration to address the most challenging issues health care leaders face while implementing AI.  The HAIP […]

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is launching a Center for Translational Bioinformatics, an innovative joint effort of the university’s McDonnell Genome Institute and the Institute for Informatics, Data Science & Biostatistics. The center will bring together experts from diverse fields to accelerate precision medicine research and improve patient care by integrating comprehensive patient data and […]

Four winners have been selected for the 2024-2025 Big Ideas Competition award! Each of these remarkable teams will be awarded a grant of $50,000 in research funds for their outstanding projects. Among the winning teams is Dr. Jing Li from the Institute for Informatics, Data Science and Biostatistics (I2DB).  (PI / project lead in bold): […]

WashU researchers have combined artificial intelligence and mobile health data to better predict patients’ recovery from lumbar spine surgery. The techniques were developed at the university’s AI for Health Institute.

Sunny Lin, PhD, MS, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of General Medical Sciences and I2DB, served as a guest editor for the American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC)’s issue titled “The Health Information Technology Special Issue: Making Innovations Impactful, Ethical, and Equitable.” In her letter as guest editor, she delves into the […]

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has received a five-year, $7.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support a radiation oncology center that is part of a select national network of centers aimed at understanding the biologic effects of radiation therapy in cancer treatment. Washington University’s new center — […]

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has been named one of nine core sites in the Pediatric Heart Network, a national network of leading hospitals and research institutions that works toward improving outcomes and quality of life for children with heart disease. The Pediatric Heart Network (PHN) is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and […]