Robert A. Greenes
Ira A. Fulton Chair and Professor
Department of Biomedical Informatics

Department of Biomedical Informatics

About BMI

The Department of Biomedical Informatics (BMI) supports a partnership between academic researchers, clinical practitioners and regional healthcare providers to advance research and education in the science and practice of biomedical informatics.

BMI is currently offering an M.S. degree and a Ph.D. degree in the field. The core program will feature four courses for M.S. students and five course for Ph.D. students specifically designed to bring together clinicians and researchers in teams, applying new developments in informatics theory to clinical practice, a common request  among the constituencies surveyed when planning the degree. The core courses feature an introductory course, a two-semester sequence in methodology and a course in problem solving with an emphasis on the latest software and systems solutions.

Letter from the Chair

Dear Colleagues, Prospective Students and Friends,

As we begin the second year of existence of our Department of Biomedical Informatics, I am writing to reflect on what we have accomplished and our plans for the future. The Department of Biomedical Informatics at Arizona State University was formed in March 2007, with a strong research mandate, but with a twist that takes advantage of its unique situation and setting. The department is part of the School of Computing and Informatics in the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, but is located on the downtown Phoenix campus of the University of Arizona College of Medicine. It is also next door to Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), in a rapidly developing biomedical enterprise zone in downtown Phoenix.

Our beautiful new building, which had its grand opening on October 15, 2007, has over 44,000 sq. ft. devoted to BMI, and is equipped with high speed networking, videoconferencing, including a state-of-the-art “medpresence” telesuite, and many flexible spaces. Most important is the spirit of innovation and adventure. A new curriculum for the medical students integrates informatics concepts, methods, and applications from the outset. The M.S. program in biomedical informatics began in Fall 2007, and a Ph.D. program begins in Fall 2008.

Thanks to a generous startup budget, we are gearing up rapidly in all the major areas of BMI, with several new additions to our faculty and others planned over the next couple of years. Research programs are already underway in bioinformatics, imaging informatics, clinical informatics, public health informatics, and cross-cutting areas such as data mining/predictive modeling, knowledge representation, cognitive science, medical simulation, and embedded sensors/sensor networks.

The growth that has been occurring all around us can only be considered extraordinary. The enthusiasm, shared vision, and eagerness to collaborate by clinical partners both nearby and across Phoenix and Arizona, including Banner Health, Barrow Neurological Institute, TGen, Maricopa Integrated Health System, the Veterans Administration, and Mayo Clinic, as well as several state agencies and other entities, have resulted in the initiation of a number of research partnerships and joint educational ventures. We are pleased to report that in our first year, the BMI faculty have already received $9.1 M in research funding commitments.

We look forward to this second year, and to continued development and expansion of our programs. Watch this space!

Sincerely,

Robert A. Greenes, M.D., Ph.D.
Chair and Professor
Department of Biomedical Informatics
Arizona State University