director's welcome
Spring semester, 2008 is off to a great start. A number of initiatives have been launched and significant progress has been made on several fronts, a sampling of which is presented in this issue of our newsletter.
The Department of Biomedical Informatics (BMI) welcomes new faculty member Dr. Douglas Fridsma, who joins us from University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Biomedical Informatics. Dr. Vimla Patel of BMI received a $5 million dollar grant from the James S. McDonnell Foundation for a collaborative study on research titled, “Cognitive Complexity and Error in Critical Care.” Dr. Patel and her team will use the funding to study the role that human action plays in medical errors.
In January, we launched the new Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Cognitive Adaptive Systems (CIRCAS) led by Dr. Pat Langley. This center is pursuing research on intelligent systems that incorporate insights from human cognition.
Our Informatics Certificate continues to attract new students. The certificate program is intended for non-computing majors at ASU and consists of 21 selected credit hours. The students learn how to use the communication tools that are playing a progressively dominant role in our world.
Our faculty are active in supporting high school outreach programs. For example, Dr. Winslow Burleson is currently developing a robotics curriculum, in partnership with the School of Earth and Space Exploration, the Mars Education Program and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This will debut in local high schools this spring. Students will learn to design a robot that can create a map of a planetary surface.
Thanks to all our staff, faculty and students who continue to make this academic unit an excellent environment.
Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan