I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics, and a Senior Biomedical Informatics Scientist, Center for Clinical and Translational Science, University of Utah. I lead the research and development of diverse health informatics projects including data integration, metadata discovery, recruitment, streamlining research data and statistical analytics, and machine learning. I have led and participate in multiple data federation and integration projects for clinical and population health research. I am the R&D lead for OpenFurther project, an open source informatics solution for biomedical data integration and federation. I am currently extending its capabilities as a Big Data integration platform including exposomic and sensor data in order to perform environmental biomedical research fpr performing sensor-based epidemiological research. As the Principal Investigator of a bioCADDIE pilot project, I led work in automation of metadata discovery for different biomedical data and using the same within data integration platforms. In previous work, as the informatics principal investigator for the PHIS+, I lead the development of a multi-site data integration project using the OpenFurther technology for performing pediatric clinical and comparative effectiveness research. I am also currently the Utah site informatics lead for the PaTH PCORnet Clinical Data Research Network and the CTSA Accrual to Clinical Trials network. I lead the development of novel approaches for recruitment of participants for clinical trials, and streamlining analytics and provisioning of biomedical data and metadata needed for different biomedical studies undertaken at the University of Utah. I have extensive experience with clinical machine learning including using medical knowledge and temporal modeling. I practiced as a medical doctor managing patients with various conditions. My experience and training as a biomedical informaticist and physician and my lead involvement with multi-site large data projects as well as supporting the needs of clinical and translational research make me uniquely qualified to contribute as co-principal investigator for this CDC project. I will work with Dr. Julio Facelli (Principal Investigator) and other key personnel and staff in advancing the science of data integration for supporting public health surveillance and public health research.

Mentoring Philosophy

We will have regular meetings individually and with teams to guide the student through the project in addition to communicating via email as required. I will develop clear expectations for the student keeping in mind their background, career goals and future directions. Our first priority will be to engage the student in scientific process of translational exposomic research by having the student participate in generating hypotheses, developing methods, their evaluation and application. Next I will encourage and develop the student’s ability to communicate science effectively both to scientific and lay audiences. Finally, our group fosters critical thinking skills in the student by encouraging them to develop their project work in constructive manner and by enabling them to understand limitations and uncertainties associated as she/he works exposomic data.